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The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862

Author: Various


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, VOL. 1, NO. 2, FEBRUARY, 1862 ***

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:


DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.


       *       *       *       *       *

VOL. I.--FEBRUARY, 1862.--NO. II.

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR WAR AND OUR WANT.


Can this great republic of our forefathers exist with slavery in it?

Whether we like or dislike the question, it must be answered. As the war
stands, we have gone too far to retreat. It clamors for a brave and
manly solution. Let us see if we can, laying aside all prejudices, all
dislikes whatever, discover an honest course, simply with a view to
preserve the Union and insure its future prosperity. Let us avoid all
foregone conclusions, all extraneous issues, adhering strictly to the
one great need of the hour--how to conquer the foe, reëstablish the
Union, and do this in a manner most consonant with our future national
prosperity.

It is manifest enough that in a continent destined at no distant day to
contain its hundred millions, the question whether these shall form one
great nation or a collection of smaller states is one of fearful
importance. He who belongs to a _great_ nation is thereby great of
himself. He has the right to be proud, and will work out his life more
proudly and vigorously and freely than the dweller in a corner-country.
Do those men ever _reflect_, who talk so glibly of this government as
too large, and as one which must inevitably be sundered, to what a
degradation they calmly look forward! No; Union,--come what may,--now
and ever. Greatness is to every brave man a _necessity_. Out on the
craven and base-hearted who aspire to being less than the co-rulers of a
continent. See how vile and mean are those men who in the South have
lost all national pride in a small-minded provincial attachment to a
State, who love their local county better still, and concentrate their
real political interests in the feudal government of a plantation. Shall
_we_ be as such,--_we_, the men who hold the destinies of a hemisphere
within our grasp? Never,--God help us,--_never!_

On the basis of free labor we are pressing onward over the mighty West.
Two great questions now require grappling with. The one is, whether
slavery shall henceforth be tolerated; the other, whether we shall
strengthen this great government of the Union so as to preserve it in
future from the criminal intrigues of would-be seceding, ambitious men
of no principle. Now is the time to decide.

We must not be blind to a great opportunity which may be lost, of
forever quelling a foul nuisance which would, if neglected _now_, live
forever. Do we not see, feel, and understand what sort of _white men_
are developed by slavery, and do we intend to keep up such a race among
us? _Do we want all this work to do over again_ every ten or five years
or all the time? For a quarter of a century, slavery and nothing else
has kept us in a growing fever, and now that it has reached a crisis the
question is whether we shall calm down the patient with cool rose-water.
In the crisis comes a physician who knows the constitution of his
patient, and proposes searching remedies and a thorough cure,--and, lo!
the old nurse cries out that he is interfering and acting unwisely,
though he is quite as willing to adopt her cooling present solace as
she.

If we had walked over the war-course last spring without opposition,--if
we had conquered the South, would we have put an end to this trouble?
Does any one believe that we would? This is not now a question of the
right to hold slaves, or the wrong of so doing. All of that old
abolition jargon went out and died with the present aspect of the war.
So far as nine-tenths of the North ever cared, or do now care, slaves
might have hoed away down in Dixie, until supplanted, as they have been
in the North, by the irrepressible advance of manufactures and small
farms, or by free labor. 'Keep your slaves and hold your tongues,' was,
and would be now, our utterance. But they would not hold their tongues.
It was 'rule or ruin' with them. And if, as it seems, a man can not hold
slaves without being arrogant and unjust to others, we must take his
slaves away.

And why is not this the proper time to urge emancipation? Divested of
all deceitful and evasive turns, the question reduces itself to
this,--are we to definitely conquer the enemy once and for all, the
great enemy Oligarchy, by taking out its very heart? or are we to keep
up this strife with slaveholders forever? It is a great and hard thing
to do, this crushing the difficulty, but we must either do it or be done
for. In a few months 'the tax-gatherer will be around.' If anybody has
read the report of the Secretary of the Treasury without a grave
sensation, he is very fortunate. How would such reports please us
annually for many years? So long as there exists in the Union a body of
men disowning allegiance to it, puffed up in pride, loathing and
scorning the name of free labor, especially as the ally of capital, just
so long will the tax-gatherer be around,--and with a larger bill than
ever.

To such an extent is this arrogance carried of urging utter silence at
present on the subject of slavery, that one might almost question
whether the right of free speech or thought is to be left at all, save
to those who have determined on a certain course of conduct. When it is
remembered that those who wish to definitely conclude this great
national trouble are in the great majority, we stand amazed at the
presumption which forbids them to utter a word. One may almost distrust
his senses to hear it so brazenly urged that because he happens to think
that our fighting and victories may go hand in hand with a measure which
is to prevent future war, he is 'opposed to the Administration,' is 'a
selfish traitor thinking of nothing but the Nigger,' and altogether a
stumbling-block and an untimely meddler. If he protest that he cares no
more for the welfare of the Negro than for that of the man in the moon,
he is still reviled as an 'abolitionist.' If he insist that emancipation
will end the war, his 'conservative' foe becomes pathetic over his
indifference as to what is to become of the four millions of 'poor
blacks.' And, in short, when he urges the great question whether this
country is to tolerate slavery or no, he is met with trivial fribbling
side-issues, every one of which _should_ vanish like foam before the
determined will and onward march of a great, _free_ people.

Now let every friend of the Union boldly assume that _so far as the
settlement of this question is concerned he_ does not care one straw for
the Negro. Leave the Negro out altogether. Let him sink or swim, so far
as this difficulty goes. Men have tried for thirty years to appeal to
humanity, without success, for the Negro, and now let us try some other
expedient. Let us regard him not as a man and a brother, but as 'a
miserable nigger,' if you please, and a nuisance. But whatever he be, if
the effect of owning such creatures is to make the owner an intolerable
fellow, seditious and insolent, it becomes pretty clear that such
ownership should be put an end to. If Mr. Smith can not have a horse
without riding over his neighbor, it is quite time that Smith were
unhorsed, no matter how honestly he may have acquired the animal. And if
the Smiths, father and sons, threaten to keep their horse in spite of
law,--nay, and breed up a race of horses from him, whereon to roughride
everybody who goes afoot,--then it becomes still more imperative that
the Smith family cease cavaliering it altogether.

There is yet another point which the stanch Union-lover must keep in
view. In pushing on the war with heart and soul, we inevitably render
slaveholding at any rate a most precarious institution, and one likely
to be broken up altogether. Seeing this, many unreflectingly ask, 'Why
then meddle with it?' But it _must_ be considered in some way, and
provided for as the war advances, or we shall find ourselves in such an
imbroglio as history never saw the like of. He who cuts down a tree must
take forethought how it may fall, or he will perchance find himself
crushed. He who in a tremendous conflagration would blow up a block of
houses with powder, must, even amid the riot and roar, so manage the
explosion that lives be not wantonly lost. We must clear the chips away
as our work advances. The matter in hand is the war--if you choose,
nothing but the war. But pushing on singly and simply at _the war_
implies _some_ wisdom and a certain regard to the future and to
consequences. The mere abolitionist of the old school, who regards the
Constitution as a league with death and a covenant with hell, may, if he
pleases, see in the war only an opportunity to wreak vengeance on the
South and free the black. But the 'emancipationist' sees this in a very
different light. He sees that we are _not_ fighting for the Negro, or
out of hatred to anybody. He knows that we are fighting to restore the
Union, and that this is the first great thought, to be carried out at
_all_ hazards. But he feels that this carrying out involves some action
at the same time on the great trouble which first caused the war, and
which, if neglected, will prolong the war forever. He feels that the
future of the greatest republic in existence depends on settling this
question now and forever, and that if it be left to the chances of war
to settle itself, there is imminent danger that even a victory may not
prevent a disrupture of the Union. For, disguise it as we may, there is
a vast and uncontrollable body at the North who hate slavery, and pity
the black, and these men will not be silent or inactive. Did the
election of Abraham Lincoln involve nothing of this? We know that it
did. Will this 'extreme left,' this radical party, keep quiet and do
nothing? Why they are the most fiercely active men on our continent. Let
him who would prevent this battle degenerating into a furious strife
between radical abolition and its opponents weigh this matter well.
There are fearful elements at work, which may be neutralized, if we who
fight for the _Union_ will be wise betimes, and remove the bone of
contention.

Above all, let every man bear in mind that, even as the war stands,
something _must_ be done to regulate and settle the Negro question.
After what has been already effected in the border States and South
Carolina, it would be impossible to leave the Negro and his owner in
such an undefined relation as now exists. And yet this very fact--one of
the strongest which can be alleged to prove the necessity of legislation
and order--is cited to prove that the matter will settle itself. Take,
for instance, the following from the correspondence of a daily
cotemporary:--


     THE ARMY SPOILING THE SLAVES.--Whatever may be the policy of the
     government in regard to the status of the slaves, one thing is
     certain, that wherever our army goes, it will most effectually
     spoil all the slaves and render them worthless to their masters.
     This will be the necessary result, and we think it perfectly
     useless to disturb the administration and distract the minds of the
     people with the everlasting discussion of this topic. Soon our army
     will be in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and the soldiers will
     carry with their successful arms an element of liberty that will
     infuse itself into every slave in those States. The only hope for
     the South, if, indeed, it has not passed away, is to throw down
     their arms and submit unconditionally to the government.

That is to say, we are to free the slave, only we must not say so!
Rather than take a bold, manly stand, avow what we are actually doing,
and adopt a measure which would at once conciliate and harmonize the
whole North, we are to suffer a tremendous disorder to spring up and
make mischief without end! Can we never get over this silly dread of
worn-out political abuse and grapple fairly with the truth? Are we
really so much afraid of being falsely called abolitionists and
negro-lovers that we can not act and think like _men!_ Here we are
frightened at _names_, dilly-dallying and quarreling over idle words,
when a tremendous crisis calls for acts. But this can not last forever.
Something must be done right speedily for the myriad of blacks whom we
shall soon have on our hands. Barracooning contrabands by thousands may
do for the present, but how as to the morrow? Let it be repeated again
and again, that they who argue against touching the Negro question _at
present_ are putting off from day to day an evil which becomes terrible
as it is delayed. It can _not_ be let alone. Already those in power at
Washington are terrified at its extent, but fear to act, owing to
'abolition,' while all the time the foul old political ties and
intrigues are gathering closely about. Let us cut the knot betimes, act
bravely and manfully, and settle the difficulty ere it settles us.
Something must be done, and that right early.

But what is to become of the freed blacks? Again and again does this
preposterous bugbear rise up to prove, by the terror which it excites,
the vast ignorance of the subject which prevails in this country, and
the small amount of deliberate reasoning generally bestowed on matters
of the most vital importance. Reader, if you would answer it, go to
facts. You have probably all your life accepted as true the statement
that the black when free promptly becomes an idle, worthless vagabond.
You have believed that a _majority_ of the free blacks in the North are
good for nothing. Now I tell you calmly and deliberately, and
challenging inquiry, that _this is not true_. Admitting that about
one-fifth of them are so, you have but a weak argument. As for the
forlorn, unacclimated exiles in Canada, where there is no demand for the
labor which they are peculiarly fit to render, they are not a case in
point. The black servants, cooks, barbers, white-washers, carpet-beaters
and grooms of Baltimore and Philadelphia, which form the four-fifths
majority of free blacks in those cities, are not idle vagabonds. Above
all, reader, I beg of you to read the dispassionate and calmly written
_Cotton Kingdom_ of Frederick Law Olmstead, recently published by Mason
Brothers, of New York. You will there find the fact set forth by closest
observation that the negroes in part are indeed lazy vagabonds, but that
the majority, when allowed to work for themselves, and when free, _do_
work, and that right steadily. In the Virginia tobacco factories slaves
can earn on an average as much money for themselves, in the 'over hours'
allowed them, as the manufacturer pays their owner for their services
during the day. There are cases in which slaves, hired for one hundred
dollars a year, have made for themselves three hundred.[A]

[Footnote A: 'If the slaves be emancipated, what with their own natural
ability and such aids and appliances as the government and 20,000,000 of
people in the North can furnish, I do not believe but that they will get
employment, and pay, and, of course, subsistence.'--HON. GEORGE S.
BOUTWELL.]

But the vagabond surplus,--the minority? Is it possible that with Union
or disunion before us we can hesitate as to taking on this incumbrance?
In a hard-working land vagabonds must die off,--'tis a hard case, but
the emergency for the white men of this and a coming age is much harder.
After all, there are only some fifteen hundred or two thousand lazy free
negroes in New York city,--the climate, we are told, is too severe for
them,--and this among well-nigh a million of inhabitants. We think it
would be possible to find one single alderman in that city who has
wasted as much capital, and injured the commonwealth quite as much, in
one year, as all the negroes there put together, during the same time.
It would be absurd to imagine that the emancipation of every negro in
America to-morrow would add one million idlers and vagabonds to our
population. _But what if it did?_ Would their destiny or injury to us be
of such tremendous importance that we need for it peril our welfare as a
nation? The standing armies of Germany absorb about one-fifth of the
entire capital of the land. Better one million of negative negroes than
a million of positive soldiers!

There was never yet in history a time when such a glorious future
offered itself to a nation as that which is now within our grasp. In its
greatness and splendor it is beyond all description. The great problem
of Republicanism--the question of human progress--has reached its last
trial. If we keep this mighty nation one and inseparable, we shall have
answered it forever; if not, why then those who revile man as vile and
irreclaimably degraded may raise their pæans of triumph; the black
spectres of antique tyrants may clap their hands gleefully in the land
of accursed shadows, and hell hold high carnival, for, verily, it would
seem as if they had triumphed, and that hope were a lie.

But who are they who dare accuse us of wishing to weaken the
administration and impede its course? Bring the question to light! If
there be one thing more than another which those who demand emancipation
desire, it is that the central government should be _strengthened_--aye,
strengthened as it has never been before; so that, in future, there can
be no return of secession. We have never been a republic--only an
aggregate of smaller republics. If we _had_ been one, the first movement
toward disunion would have hurled the traitors urging it to the dust.
Aye, strengthen the government; and let its first manifestation of
strength and will be the settling of the negro question. Give the
administration as full power as you please--the more the better; it is
only conferring strength on the people. There is no danger that the men
of the North will ever lose a shadow of individual rights. They are too
powerful.

And now let the freemen of America speak, and the work will be done. A
great day is at hand; hasten it. The hour which sees this Union
re-united will witness the most glorious triumph of humanity,--the
greatest step towards realizing the social aim of Christianity, and of
Him who died for all,--the recognition of the rights of every one.
Onward!

       *       *       *       *       *

BROWN'S LECTURE TOUR.


I.--HOW HE CAME TO DO IT.

My last speculation had proved a failure. I was left with a stock of
fifty impracticable washing-machines on my hands, and a cash capital of
forty-four cents. With the furniture of my room, these constituted my
total assets. I had an unsettled account of forty dollars with Messrs.
Roller & Ems, printers, for washing-machine circulars, cards, etc.;
and--

Rap, rap, rap!

[_Enter boy_.]

'Mr. Peck says as how you'll please call around to his office and settle
up this afternoon, sure.'

[_Exit boy_.]

  _New York, Nov. 30, 1859_.

  Mr. GREEN D. BROWN,

  _TO_ JOHN PECK, _Dr_.

  _To Rent of Room to date_     $9 00

  _Rec'd Pay't_,

I came to the emphatic conclusion that I was 'hard up.'

I kept bachelor's hall in Franklin Street, in apartments not altogether
sumptuous, yet sufficiently so for my purposes,--to wit, to sit in and
to sleep in; and inasmuch as I took my meals amid the gilded splendors
of the big saloon on the corner of Broadway, I was not disposed to
reproach myself with squalor. Yet the articles of furniture in my room
were so far removed, separately or in the aggregate, from anything like
the superfluous, that when I calmly deliberated what to part with, there
was nothing which struck me as a luxury or a comfort as distinct from a
necessary of life. I took a second mental inventory: two common chairs,
a table, a mirror, a rocking-chair, a bed, a lounge, and a single
picture on the wall.

I declare, thought I, here's nothing to spare.

But things were getting to a crisis. I must 'make a raise,' somehow.
Borrow? Ah, certainly--where was the benevolent moneyed individual? My
credit had gone with my cash; both were sunk in the washing-machines.

I lighted my pipe, and surveyed my household goods once more.

There was the picture: couldn't I do without that?

Possibly. But that picture I had had--let me see--fifteen, yes, sixteen
years. That picture was a third prize for excellence in declamation,
presented me at the school exhibition in ---- Street, when I was twelve
years old. That was in 1843, and here, on the first of December, 1859, I
sat deliberately meditating its sale for paltry bread and butter!

No, no; I'd go hungry a little longer, before I'd part with that old
relic--remembrancer of the proudest day of my life. What a pity I hadn't
permitted that day to give a direction to my life, instead of turning my
attention to the paltry expedients for money-making followed by the
common herd! I might have been an accomplished orator by this time,
capable of drawing crowds and pocketing a thousand a month, or so. But
my tastes had run in other channels since the day when I took that
prize.

Still, when I thought of it deliberately, I made bold to believe there
was that yet in me which could meet the expectant eyes of audiences nor
quail before them.

A thought struck me! Was not here an 'opening' for an enterprising young
man? Was not the lecture-season at hand? Did not lecturers get from ten
to two hundred dollars per night? Couldn't I talk off a lecture with the
best of them, perhaps? Well, perhaps I could, and perhaps not, but if I
wouldn't try it on, I hoped I might be blessed--that--was all.

I thought proper, after having reached this conclusion, to calculate my
wealth in the way of preliminary requisites to success. By preliminary
requisites to success, I mean those which lead to the securing of
invitations to lecture. I flattered myself that all matters consequent
to this point in my career would very readily turn themselves to my
advantage. The preliminary requisites were as follows:--

1. _Notoriety_. I could boast of nothing in this line. I had no
reputation whatever. I had never written a line for publication.

When I had satisfied myself that I lacked this grand requisite, I turned
my attention to the subject again only to find that No. 1 was quite
alone in its glory. It was the Alpha and Omega of the preliminary
requisites. I should never be able to get a solitary invitation.

Here I was for a moment disheartened; but, persevering in my
newly-assumed part of literary philosopher, I proceeded to the
consideration of the consequent requisites:--

1. _Literary ability_. To say the truth, my literary abilities had
hitherto been kept in the background. I was glad they were now going to
come forward. For present purposes, it was sufficient that the Astor
Library was handy, and that I could string words together respectably.

2. _Oratorical ability_. As already indicated, I was conscious of no
mean alloy of the Demosthenic gold tempering the baser metal of my
general composition. My voice was deep and strong.

3. _Facial brass_. I felt brazen enough to set up a bell-foundery on my
personal curve. My cheeks were of that metalline description that never
knew a blush, before an audience of one or many.

4. _Personal appearance_. I consulted my mirror on that point. It showed
me a young man of only twenty-eight, and tall and shapely proportions; a
well-dressed young man, with light-colored hair, prominent nose, and
heavy red beard and moustache. I twisted the latter institution
undecidedly, and ventured the belief that by shaving myself clean and
bridging my nose with a pair of black-bowed spectacles I could pass
muster.

The result total was satisfactory. I resolved to disregard the
preliminary respecting invitations, and to make a modest effort of my
own to secure an audience, by going into the country, and advertising
myself in proper form. I commenced the work of writing a lecture
forthwith; and in a few days I had ready what I deemed a rather superior
production.


II.--HOW HE PROCEEDED TO DO IT.

I gave up my lodgings in town, sold all my salable possessions, settled
up with my landlord, paid my printers in the usual way (i.e., with
promises), and, supplied with a satchel-full of hand-bills (from a rival
establishment), started for the country. My ticket was for Sidon--a
place I knew nothing whatever about; the only circumstance of a positive
character connected with it was, that it was the farthest point from New
York which I could reach by the Rattle and Smash Railroad for the net
amount of funds in my pocket. I stepped into the streets of Sidon with a
light heart, and looked out on the scene of my contemplated triumph. I
made up my mind at once that if ancient Sidon was no more of a place
than modern Sidon, it couldn't lay claim to being much of a town. The
houses, including shops and stores, would not exceed one hundred. I
walked to the tavern, and delivered my satchel to the custody of a
rough-looking animal, whom I subsequently found to be landlord, hostler,
bar-tender, table-waiter, and general manager-at-all-work. He was a very
uninviting subject; but, being myself courteously inclined, and having
also a brisk eye to business, I inquired if there was a public hall or
lecture-room in the place.

'I've got a dance-hall up-stairs. Be you a showman?'

I said I was a lecturer by profession, and asked if churches were ever
used for such purposes in Sidon.

'Never heard of any. 'Ain't got no church. Be you goin' to lecter?'

I replied that I thought some of it, and inquired if it was common to
use his hall for lectures.

'Wal, Sidon ain't much of a place for shows anyhow. When they is any, I
git 'em in, if they ain't got no tent o' their own.'

I would look at the hall.

We went up a rickety stairway, into a dingy room. The plaster had fallen
from the ceiling in several places, and the room had a mouldy smell.
There was a platform at one end, where the musicians sat when saltatory
_fêtes_ were held, and on this I mounted to 'take a view.' I didn't feel
called upon to admire the hall in audible terms; but as I stood there an
inspiring scene arose before my mental vision--a scene of up-turned
faces, each representing the sum of fifteen cents, that being the
regular swindle for getting into shows round here, the landlord said. I
struck a bargain for the hall, at once--a bargain by which I was to have
it for two dollars if I didn't do very well, or five dollars if I had a
regular big crowd; bill-stickers and doorkeeper included, free.

In the evening, I went to the village post-office, which was merely a
corner of the village store, and inquired if there was a letter there
for Professor Green D. Brown. I knew very well there was not, of course,
but I had the not unexpected pleasure of seeing the postmaster's eyes
dilate inquiringly, so that I felt called upon to say:--

'I am a stranger, sir, in Sidon, at present, but I hope to enjoy the
honor of making the acquaintance of a large number of your intelligent
citizens during my brief stay with you. I propose lecturing in this
village to-morrow evening, on a historical, or perhaps I should say
biographical, subject.'

The postmaster, who appeared like an intelligent gentleman, said he was
glad to see me, and glad to hear I was going to lecture; and he shook
hands with me cordially. The store contained about half the adult
population of the village, lounging about the warm stove, talking and
dozing; and the postmaster introduced me to Squire Johnson, and Dr.
Tomson, and Mr. Dickson, and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Potkins, who, five,
constituted the upper ten of Sidon. With these gentlemen I held a very
entertaining conversation, during which I remember I was struck with the
extreme deference paid to my opinion, and the extreme contempt
manifested for the opinions of each other. They all agreed, however,
that my visit would be likely to prove of the greatest importance to
Sidon in a literary and educational point of view.

I returned to the hotel, and retired with heart elate.

In the morning, it was with emotions of a peculiarly pleasurable nature
that I observed, profusely plastered on posts and fences, the
announcement, in goodly capitals:--

  LECTURE!!

         *       *       *       *       *

  PROF. G.D. BROWN,

  OF NEW YORK CITY,

  WILL LECTURE THIS EVENING, DECEMBER 14,

  IN JONES'S HALL, SIDON,

  AT 7 O'CLOCK.

         *       *       *       *       *

  SUBJECT: 'EURIPIDES, THE ATHENIAN POET.'

         *       *       *       *       *

  ADMISSION 15 CENTS. DOORS OPEN AT 6 O'CLOCK.

The critical reader may experience a desire to propound to me a
question:--'Professor of what?'

Now I profess honesty, as an abstract principle--being, perhaps the
conscientious reader will think, more of a professor than a practicer
herein. But the truth is, in the present mendicant state of the word
'Professor,' I conceived I had a perfect right and title to it, by
virtue of my poverty, and so appropriated it for the behoof and
advantage of Number One. Which explanation, it is hoped, will do.

Friday passed in cultivating still farther the acquaintance of the
previous evening, and receiving the most cordial assurances of interest
on their part in my visit and its object. I was candidly (and I thought
kindly) informed by my good friends, not to get my expectations too
high, as a very large house could scarcely, they feared, be expected;
but I deemed an audience of even no more than fifty or seventy-five a
fair beginning,--a very fair beginning,--and had no fears.

I retired to my room at five o'clock, and remained locked in, with my
lecture before me, oblivious of all external affairs, until a few
minutes past seven, when I concluded my audience had gathered. I then
smoothed my hair, adjusted my spectacles, took my MS. in my hand, and
proceeded to the lecture-room. The doorkeeper was fast asleep, and the
long wicks of the tallow candles were flaring wildly and dimly on a
scene of emptiness. Not an auditor was present!

I descended to the bar-room. It was full of loungers, smoking, dozing,
and drinking. Without entering, I hastened across the way to the
post-office. There was the courteous postmaster, engaged in a sleepy
talk with Squire Johnson and Dr. Tomson and Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dobson
and Mr. Potkins, who sat precisely as they sat the evening previous.

I returned to the hotel and called out the landlord.

'There's no audience, I perceive,' said I.

'Wal, I didn't cal'late much of anybody'd go in. They gen'ally go over
to Tyre when they want shows. Tyre's quite a town. You'd do better over
thar; 's on'y seven mile over to Tyre.'

I explained my position to the landlord at once, and threw myself on his
mercy. I told him I had no money, but would walk over to Tyre that very
evening, rather than task his hospitality longer. After making a little
money in Tyre, I would return to Sidon and settle his little bill. To
which the generous-hearted fellow responded,--

'Yas, I think likely; but ye see I'm _some_ on gettin' my pay outen
these show chaps that go round. I reckon that thar satchel o' yourn's
got the wuth o' my bill in it. I'll hold on to it till ye git back, ye
know.'

Remonstrance was in vain. I found that my sharp landlord had entered my
room while I was looking in at the post-office door, and had taken my
carpet-bag, with everything I had, even my overcoat, and stowed all in a
cupboard under the bar, under lock and key. He would not so much as
allow me a clean shirt; and I started for Tyre, wishing from the bottom
of my heart that the inhuman landlord might engage in a washing-machine
speculation, and involve with himself Mr. Potkins and Mr. Dobson and Mr.
Dickson and Dr. Tomson and Squire Johnson.

I reached Tyre at ten o'clock, and found that I had not been deceived
respecting its size. It was quite a large Tillage, with well laid out
streets, handsome residences, two large hotels, and three or four
churches. I took this inventory of the principal objects in Tyre with
considerable more anxiety than I had ever supposed it possible for me to
entertain concerning any country town in Christendom. I was interested
in the prosperity of Tyre. I sincerely hoped that the hard times had not
entered its quiet and beautiful streets. The streets certainly were both
quiet and beautiful, as I looked upon them in the clear moonlight of ten
o'clock at night, an hour when honest people in the country are, for the
most part, asleep. I entered the handsomest of the hotels, and
registered my name in a bran-new book on the clerk's counter.

  Name.

  Residence.

  Destination.

  _Prof. D.G. Brown,
  N.Y. City.
  Lecture in Tyre_.

'Beautiful evening, sir,' said the clerk, who was also the landlord, but
not also the bar-tender and the hostler.

'You are right, sir,' said I; 'it is truly a lovely evening. I have
rarely seen moonlight so beautiful. Indeed, such were the beauties of
the evening, that I have positively been tempted so far as to walk over
here from Sidon this evening, leaving my baggage to follow me in the
morning.'

'Ah! lectured in Sidon perhaps?'

'Well, ah! um! yes; that is, I intend to do so, but unforeseen
circumstances induced me to relinquish that purpose. Sidon is very
small.'

'Yes, sir, small place. Never heard of a lecture, or any kind of a
performance, there before. Fact is, they're a hard set over to Sidon,
and the place is better known by the name of Sodom around here.'

I felt much encouraged at hearing this; for, to tell the truth, my
cogitations as I tramped over the rough road between Tyre and Sidon had
been anything but cheerful. This was a realization of my fond dreams of
a ten-to-fifty-dollars-a-night lecture tour, such as I had hardly
anticipated, and as I drew nigh unto Tyre I had been thinking whether I
had not better try to get a situation as a farm-hand or dry-goods clerk
before my troubles should have crushed me and driven me to suicide.

But the landlord cheered me. Tyre was a model town. Tyre had a
newspaper, and Tyre patronized literary entertainments. There was a good
hall in Tyre, and the Tyrians had filled it to overflowing last winter
when Chapin spoke there. I went to bed under the benignant influence of
my cheerful host, and dreamed of lecturing to an audience of many
thousands in a hall a trifle larger than the Academy of Music, and with
every nook and corner crowded with enthusiastic listeners, whose joy
culminated with my peroration into such a tumult of delight that they
rushed upon the stage and hoisted me on their shoulders amid cheers so
boisterous that they awoke me. I found I had left my bed and mounted
into a window, with the intention, doubtless, of stepping into the
street and concluding my career at once, lest an anti-climax should be
my fate.

In the morning, I called on the editor of the newspaper.

I desire to recommend my reader to subscribe at once to _The Tyre
Times_, and thus aid to sustain the paper of a gentleman and a scholar,
who was, as editors usually are, a plain-spoken, sensible man, conscious
of the presence of talent in his sanctum, by 'sympathetic attraction.'
The editor of the _Times_ looked into the circumstances of my case with
an experienced and kindly eye, and then said to me,--

'My dear sir, you can not succeed here with a lecture. We have had
several in our village within a few years, but never one which 'paid,'
unless it was one on phrenology, or physiology, or psychology, and
plentifully spiced with humor of the coarsest sort. If you want to make
money in Tyre, you'll take my advice and get a two-headed calf, a
learned pig, or a band of nigger minstrels. Any of these things will
answer your purpose, if you want money; but if you have ambition to
gratify, if you want to lecture for the sake of lecturing, that's a
different thing. At all events, you shall have my good wishes, and I'll
do all I can to get you a house. But it won't pay.'

The reader knows that if I had not been a fool I would have understood
and heeded a statement so plain as this, made by an editor. But then, if
I hadn't been a fool, you know I should never have started on a lecture
tour at all. So, being a fool, I had bills printed, hired a hall (at ten
dollars), and was duly announced to lecture in Tyre on the coming
Tuesday evening. The same afternoon, _The Tyre Times_ appeared, and its
editorial column contained the following notice, which I read with great
interest, it being my first appearance in any periodical:--


     LECTURE AT GRECIAN HALL.--We take pleasure in announcing that Prof.
     GREEN D. BROWN, of New York city, will favor the citizens of Tyre
     with a lecture on Tuesday evening next. From what we know of the
     gentleman, we are satisfied our citizens will not regret attending
     the lecture. We trust he may not be met with an audience so small
     as lectures have heretofore drawn out in Tyre. The apathy of our
     citizens in these matters, we have before stated, is disgraceful.
     Let there be a good turn-out.

But there was not a good turn-out. The receipts were two dollars and a
half. The proprietor of the hall consented to take the receipts for his
pay, and I returned to the hotel to muse over my unhappy fortunes.

The landlord took occasion the next morning, as I was passing out of the
house, to remind me that my baggage had not arrived.

'No,' said I, 'but, as I soon leave Tyre, I shan't need it.'

The landlord looked at my dirty collar and bosom as if he doubted either
my sanity or my decency, and remarked that perhaps I knew his rules
compelled him to present the bills of strangers semi-weekly.

'O, yes! that's all right,' said I; 'I'll see you when I come back from
the printing-office.'

I noticed that mine host stood watching to see that I entered the
printing-office safely.

The editor remarked, after I had told him all the experience narrated
here, commencing with the washing-machines,--

'It's a bad case, and I don't admire your experience at all, to speak
candidly; but I have a little idea of my own to work out, and you can
help me do it, perhaps. In the first place, though, I want to know
whether you intend to continue in this line of business,--eh?'

'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to
those who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for
me, more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'

'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you
what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't
afford to pay much for it, but I'll agree to settle your hotel bill if
you'll part with it. Not that I think it's worth it, but you need to be
helped somehow right away.'

I jumped at the chance, and thanked my friend heartily. He asked if I
would please go and send the landlord to him, and I retired to perform
that errand.

I was punctual to my appointment in the evening, and listened to the
project my editorial angel had in view; a plan by which he proposed to
inflict a lesson on the negligent Tyrians, and at the same time
replenish my purse. He explained to me the part I was to perform in this
enterprise, and I found I could enter heartily into the spirit of it. We
shook hands in the best of humors, and parted that evening understanding
each other perfectly.


III.--HE MAKES A HIT IN TYRE.

The next day, the entire jobbing facilities of the _Times_ office were
brought into requisition, and toward evening a mammoth bill was posted
around the town, which read as follows:--

    MONS. BELITZ'S
    CELEBRATED AND MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION,
    THE GREAT TRAVELING HUMBURG!
    The most wonderful entertainment, whether
    CAININE, PRISTINE, OR QUININE,
    ever brought before the astonished Public's visual organs!!!

         *       *       *       *       *

    The _avant courier_ of this monster troupe has the honor of
    announcing to the ladies and gentlemen of Tyre, that Mons. BELITZ,
    accompanied by his entire retinue of attachés and supes, Female
    Dancers and Dogs, Operatic Vocalists and Vixens, Royal Musicians and
    Monsters, Bengal Tigers and Time-servers, Magicians and Madmen,
    Flying Birds, Swimming Fishes, Walking Cats and Dogs, Crawling
    Reptiles, and various other extraordinary and impossible
    arrangements, the like of which never before appeared in Bog county,
    until the arrival of the present occasion, to wit:--

    AT GRECIAN HALL, TYRE,

    On Saturday Evening, December 22, 1859.

         *       *       *       *       *

     ---> LOOK AT THE ARRAY OF TALENT! <---

         *       *       *       *       *

    MONS. BELITZ,
    the celebrated Magician from Egypt, performer general to

    THE GRAND FOO FOO,
    and professor of the Black Art to all the crowned heads of the
    Cannibal Islands and Ham Sandwichlands!!

    MADEMOISELLE HELIOTROPE,
    the charming Danseuse from all the city theatres, but most recently
    from the Imperial _Deutscher Yolks Garten_, Liverpool, Ireland!

    SIGNOR STRAWSTEKOWSKI,
    the celebrated Demagogue and Snake eater, whose unrivaled feat with
    a living _Gryllus_, whose fangs have never been extracted, fills
    thousands with awe and delight!

    YANKEE SHOCKWIG,
    the mirth-splitting and side-provoking delineator of down-east horse
    peculiarities. Must be appreciated to be seen.

    HERR BALAMSASS,
    the distinguished Vocalist from Italy, whose lower notes, as
    recently discovered by the celebrated examination before the Council
    of Trent, reach so far below the _epigastrium_ as to be utterly
    inaudible to the most acute auricular organs!

    BRUDDER GEORGE AND AUNTY CLAWSON,
    the never-to-be-sufficiently-equaled delineators of Ethiopian
    eccentricities, whose performances during the winter of 1869
    delighted overflowing houses in the Cape Cod Lunatic Asylum for 4000
    consecutive nights.

    BENJAMIN BOLT, Esq.,
    the justly-celebrated trumpeter from the splendid orchestral band
    attached to Marnum's Buseum, New York city, for the past fifty
    years!

    FANTADIMO FANTODIMUS,
    the graceful and efficient master of ceremonies, whose efforts have
    been awarded by the entire available population of Blackwell's
    Island, in a series of resolutions of the most pathetic description!

         *       *       *       *       *

    Owing to future engagements, the stay of this troupe in Tyre will be
    POSITIVELY FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY, when the Programme will be specified
    in small bills of the evening.

    Admittance, 25 cents. Doors open at 6; Master of Ceremonies makes
    his bow at 7.

    PROF. BROWN D. GREEN, AGENT.

Against the advice of the editor of the Times, I dispatched an agent
over to Sidon, with a supply of blanked bills from the same form, with
instructions to arrange for a similar 'sell' on the following Monday
evening in that charming village.

I was sufficiently busy during the interval that lay between this and
Saturday evening in rehearsing my part for the entertainment thus
advertised. I was not entirely free from doubts of the success of a
'take-in' so palpable and ridiculous, and even if a house-full of
numbsculls _should_ gather, I deemed the experiment a dangerous one for
me; but my editorial friend took the risk, remarking that he had
calculated his chances, and knew what he was about. Nevertheless, it
was not without some trepidation that I entered Grecian Hall by the
private door, at a little before seven o'clock, and laid my hat behind
the temporary curtain that had been erected for the accommodation of the
great Humbug Troupe. Applying my eye to a chink in the cloth, I
perceived that the hall was crowded to suffocation. My editorial friend
sat in a prominent position near the stage, and the audience was
manifesting those signs of impatience which seem to be equally orthodox
among the news-boys in the pit of the old Bowery Theatre and the coarse
young rustics who go to 'shows' in the back villages of ruraldom. I
tinkled a bell. The uproar grew quiet. I drew aside my curtain, and made
my bow, amid the silent wonderment of my auditors. Then I said:--

'Ladies and gentlemen: You now see before you the redoubtable Fantadimo
Fantodimus, master of ceremonies for the Great Humbug Troupe. You also
see before you, ladies and gentlemen, Mons. Belitz, the renowned
magician, Mademoiselle Heliotrope, the graceful danseuse, Signor
Strawstekowski, Herr Balamsass; and, in short, ladies and gentlemen, you
see before you the sum and substance of the Great Humbug Troupe, as it
exists in all its original splendor. We salute you!

'My friends, you were drawn here to-night by the extravagantly worded
and outlandish representations of a poster which promised you only one
single thing, namely, that you should behold a Great Traveling Humbug.
Nothing could be more honest, though some things might be more
straightforward. Force of circumstances compels me this evening to
represent the Great Traveling Humbug you came to see. I am this evening
the greatest of humbugs. I travel. A week ago, I traveled into this
village with the laudable intention of giving you a sensible lecture on
EURIPIDES, a historical personage of whom some of you may have heard. I
traveled over to this hall on the evening of my lecture, and spoke to a
beggarly array of empty seats. To-morrow morning, I intend to travel to
church in your beautiful village, repent of my sins, and on Monday
travel home to New York, where I shall at once take measures to rid
myself of the title I wear this evening, by earning my bread in the
old-fashioned way, by the sweat of my brow.

'Humbug, ladies and gentlemen, is a pill not at all disagreeable to
take, when gilded carefully. My pill has been prepared by the hand of a
novice, and you have swallowed it with your eyes open. May it benefit
you!'

Symptoms of a disturbance immediately became manifest, when my editorial
angel arose and spread his wings over the troubled audience.

'People of Tyre,' said he, 'the exhibition of the Great Humbug Troupe
is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and least objectionable
that ever appeared in our village. It remains for us to make it
instructive. I propose that we give three cheers for our brave
entertainer,--hip, hip,

'_Hurrah!_ HURRAH! HURRAH!'

Like young thunder the last cheer arose; and my bacon was saved!

The receipts placed me in possession of fifty dollars, after defraying
all expenses in Tyre and settling my bill and recovering my satchel from
Sidon--which I did by a messenger the same evening after the lecture. My
editorial friend advised me now to stop at Sidon only long enough to
take the first train home, leaving the Sidonites to discover the sell
without expense. But I scouted the idea. I was flushed with the success
of the previous evening (a success mainly due, as the sagacious reader
knows, to the editor of the _Times_ and his _corps_ of confidants
distributed at intervals over the hall); I was chagrined at the turn my
original enterprise had taken, but determined to carry it out 'to the
death;' and, more than all, I was burning to revenge myself on the
perfidious postmaster of Sidon, and Dr. Tomson and Squire Johnson and
Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Potkins. And on Monday evening I
faced an audience in Jones's Hall, Sidon, prominent among whom I
noticed, the principal objects of my ire.


IV.--HE DON'T MAKE A HIT IN SIDON, THOUGH SOME PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE
DOES.

No time for contemplation was left on my hands, however; for as soon as
I had articulated the words 'ladies and gentlemen,' an offensive missile
hit me between my eyes, exploded, and deluged me with an odor in
comparison with which that of Limberger cheese would be mere geranium. I
was betrayed. Tyre had sent over a detachment of spies, and the
Sidonites were armed. I briskly dodged several companion eggs whose
foulness was permitted to adorn the walls of Jones's Hall behind me, and
then undertook to escape. Simultaneously with the explosion of the first
shot, a howl had burst from the audience, which boded no good for any
prospects of comfort and profit I might entertain. Escaping on my part
became no joke; and I beg the reader to believe that my chagrin was
quite overwhelmed in the all-impressive desire to protect myself from
total annihilation. In my subsequent gratitude at having accomplished
this feat, I overlooked the little discomforts of an eye in mourning, a
broken finger, and garments perfumed throughout in defiance of _la
mode_.

At present, I am engaged in a business which I deem far more respectable
and lucrative than lecturing, to wit, explaining the merits and
advantages of a patent needle-threader to interested crowds on Broadway.
Here my oratorical abilities are advantageously displayed, my audiences
are attentive, and my profits are good.

[_Exit Brown_]

       *       *       *       *       *

THE WATCHWORD.


  'Trust in the Lord, and keep your powder dry!'
    So cried stout OLIVER in the storm, before
    That redder rain on bloody Marston Moor,
  Which whelmed the flower of English chivalry.
  Repeat the watchword when the sullen sky
    Stoops with its weight of terror, while the roar
    Of the far thunder deepens, and no more
  God's gracious sunshine greets the lifted eye!
  Not Faith alone, but Faith with Action armed,
    Shall win the battle, when the anointed host
  Wars with the alien armies, and, unharmed,
    Snatch victory from a field where all seemed lost.
  Front Death and Danger with a level eye;
  Trust in the Lord, _and keep your powder dry!_

       *       *       *       *       *

TINTS AND TONES OF PARIS.


It is a curious test of national character to compare the prevalent
impressions of one country in regard to another whereof the natural and
historical description is quite diverse: and in the case of France and
England, there are so many and so constantly renewed incongruities, that
we must discriminate between the effect of immediate political jealousy,
in such estimates, and the normal and natural bias of instinct and
taste. To an American, especially, who may be supposed to occupy a
comparatively disinterested position between the two, this mutual
criticism is an endless source of amusement. In conversation, at the
theatre, on the way from Calais or Dover to either capital, at a Paris
_café_, or a London club-house, he hears these ebullitions of prejudice
and partiality, of self-love or generous appreciation, and finds therein
an endless illustration of national character as well as of human
nature. But perhaps the literature of the two countries most
emphatically displays their respective points of view and tone of
feeling. While a popular French author sums up the elements of life in
England as being _la vie de famille, la politique, et les
affaires_,--'domestic life, politics, and business,'--he complacently
infers that _le fond du caractère Anglais_, 'the basis of the English
character,' is nothing more nor less than _le manque de bonheur_--'a
want of anything like happiness.' An English thinker, on the other hand,
finds in the very language of France the evidence of superficial emotion
and unaspiring, irreverent intelligence. 'How exactly,' writes Julius
Ham, 'do _esprit_ and _spirituel_ express what the French deem the
highest glory of the human mind! A large part of their literature is
_mousseux_; and whatever is so, soon grows flat. Our national quality is
sense, which may, perhaps, betray a tendency to materialism; but which,
at all events, comprehends a greater body of thought, that has settled
down and become substantiated in maxims.'[A] How far a Frenchman is from
appreciating this distinction, as unfavorable to his own race, we can
realize from the following estimate of the historical evil which an
admired modern writer considers that race has suffered from the English,
and from the character of the latter as recognized by another equally a
favorite:--

[Footnote A: Guesses at Truth.]

'Iniquitous England,' writes a popular novelist, 'the vile executioner
of all in which France most exulted, murdered grace in Marie Stuart, as
it did inspiration in Jeanne d'Arc, and genius in Napoleon;'--'a race,'
says another, 'gifted with a national feeling which well-nigh approaches
superstition, yet which has chosen the whole world for its country. The
gravity of _these beings_, accidentally brought together and isolated by
mere interest, their life of mechanical activity, and of labor without
relaxation as without life, all interest, yet freeze you at the same
time.' 'The Englishman has made unto himself a language appropriate to
his placid manners and silent habits. This language is a murmur
interrupted by subdued hisses,'--'_un murmure entre-coupé de sifflements
doux_.'

The gregarious hotel life in America commends itself to the time-saving
habits of a busy race; but the love of speciality in France modifies
this advantage: in our inns a stated price covers all demands except for
wine; here each separate necessity is a specific charge--the sheet of
writing paper, the cake of soap, and the candle figure among the
innumerable items of the bill. Thus an infinite subdivision makes all
business tedious, involving so many distinct processes and needless
conditions; at every step we realize of how much less comparative value
is time in the Old World. On the other hand, the rigid system that
governs municipal life, the means adopted to render all public
institutions both accessible and attractive, claim perpetually the
gratitude of artists, students, and philosophers. A programme of
exploration may be arranged at will, yielding a complete insight, and,
when achieved, such has been the order, communicativeness and facility,
that we have a more distinct and reliable idea of the whole circle of
observation than it is possible to obtain elsewhere. We are continually
reminded of Buffon's maxim: '_la genie est la patience_.' A curious
illustration of this systematic habit of the French occurred at
Constantinople, during the Crimean war, where they immediately numbered
the houses and named the streets, to the discomfiture of the passive
Turks--one of whom, in his wonder at the mechanical superiority of these
Frank allies, asked a soldier if the high fur cap on his head would come
off. The _concièrge_ beneath each _porte cochére_, the social
distinction which makes each _café_ and restaurant the nucleus of a
particular class, the organized provision for all exigencies of human
life in Paris, illustrate the same trait on a larger and more useful
scale. If we survey the institutions and the monuments with care, and
refer to their origin, associations and purposes, the historical and
economical national facts are revealed with the utmost clearness and
unity. The old Bastile represented, in its gloomy stolidity, the whole
tragedy of the Revolution; and St. Genevieve combines the holy memories
of the early church with that of the first French kings; the site of a
_fosse commune_ attests the valor of republican martyrs; the Champs
Elysées are the popular earthly fields of a French paradise. One _café_
is famed for the beauty of its mistress, another for the great
chess-players who make it a resort; one is the daily rendezvous of the
liberals, another of royalists, one of military men, another of artists;
they flourish and fade with dynasties, and are respectively the
favorites of provincials and citizens, gourmands and traders, men of
letters and men of state.[A] The _Monte de Piété_ acquaints us with the
vicissitudes and expedients of fortune; the _Hotel Dieu_ is a temple of
ancient charity; the _Hospice des Enfants Trouvées_ startles us with the
astounding fact that half the children born in Paris are illegitimate;
and the Morgue yields no less appalling statistics of suicide. In
Vernet's studio we feel the predominance of military taste and education
in France; in the _Ecole Polytecnique_, the policy by which her youth
are bred to serve their country; at the manufactories of the Gobelines
and Sévres china, we perceive how naturally the mechanical genius of the
race finds development in pottery and fabrics instead of ships and
machines, as across the Channel and beyond the ocean; and in the
self-possession, knowledge of affairs, and variety of occupation of the
middle class of women, we see why they have no occasion to advocate
their rights and complain of the inequality of the sexes.

[Footnote A: 'Mes habitudes de dîner chez les restaurants,' says a
Parisian philosopher, 'ont été pour moi une source intarrissable de
surprises, de decouvertes, et de revelations sur l'humanité.']

All large cities furnish daily material for tragedy, and life there,
keenly observed and aptly narrated, proves continually how much more
strange is truth than fiction; but the impressive manners and
melo-dramatic taste of the people, as well as their intricate police
system, bring out more vividly these latent points of interest, as a
reference to the _Causes Célébres_ and the Memoirs of Vidocq illustrate.
A friend of mine, returning from a trip to Lyons, became acquainted in
the rail-car with an English gentleman, and when they reached the
station, just before midnight, the two left for their hotels in the same
cab. After a short drive, the vehicle suddenly came to a halt, the
cabman sprang to the ground, and his passengers were left to surmise the
occasion of their abrupt abandonment: presently a crowd collected, a
shout was raised, and they learned that a valise had been stolen from
the top of the carriage, and its owner had set off in pursuit of the
thief. He ran with great swiftness, doubled corners, sprang over
obstacles, and was in a fair way to distance his pursuer, when a
soldier thrust out his foot and tripped up the fugitive, who was taken
to the nearest police station. Confronted with the owner of the valise,
he declared it was his own property, placed by mistake on the wrong cab.
The official authorized to settle the difficulty not being present, my
friend and his companion were informed they must leave the article in
dispute, and the case itself, until the following morning, when a
hearing would be had before one of the courts. On reaching their
destination, the gentlemen parted with the understanding that they would
dine together at a certain restaurant the next day. The appointed hour
came, but not the Englishman; and my friend's appetite and patience were
keen set, when, after an hour's delay, the truant made his appearance,
looking pale, _triste_ and exhausted. He soon explained the cause of his
detention. He had gone to the police court to prove and regain his
valise, and found at the bar a young man of genteel address and
remarkable beauty; his costume was in the latest fashion, though
somewhat soiled and torn from his fall and rough handling the previous
night; but his countenance was intelligent and refined, and his bearing
that of a gentleman. Upon a table lay the valise and the contents of the
prisoner's pockets, among them a large penknife; he held convulsively to
the rail and kept his eyes cast down; the judge had taken his seat, and
a crowd of idlers and gens d'armes filled the room. The claimant
immediately satisfied the court that the valise belonged to him by
mentioning several articles it contained and producing the key. In the
mean time the accused, earnestly watching the entrance, started and
turned pale and red by turns as a beautiful girl, in the dress of a
prosperous grisette, pushed her way into the crowd, stood on tiptoe, and
exchanged glances with the prisoner. The latter, when asked his name,
replied, 'I have brought disgrace enough upon it already,' and, seizing
the penknife, thrust it into his heart, and fell dead. He was the
descendant of a noble house in one of the southern provinces, and came
to Paris as a medical student, and, through a devoted attachment to his
mistress, whose costly tastes soon drained his purse, was induced to
steal the trunks of travelers as they left the railway stations at
night. In his apartment was found a large wardrobe; and a month's
purloining was thus summarily expiated. Similar incidents occur
elsewhere, but the details, when the scene is laid in Paris, are more
picturesque and dramatic.

Two instances which I heard related will illustrate this same dramatic
significance in the municipal system. After an _émeute_, the _chef_ of
police in a certain _arrondissement_, while engaged in superintending
the removal of corpses from a barricade, noticed the body of a female
whose delicate hands and finely-wrought robe were so alien to the scene
as to excite suspicion. He ordered it to be placed in a separate
apartment for examination. A more careful inspection confirmed his
surmise that this was the body of no amazonian whose warlike zeal or
accidental presence in such an affray could explain its discovery. There
was no trace whereby the remains could be identified except a geranium
leaf that was found imbedded in her long and disheveled tresses. This
was given to a celebrated botanist, with orders to learn, if possible,
from what plant it had been taken. The man of science visited all the
houses of the neighborhood, and critically examined every specimen of
the shrub he could find. At length, in the elegant library of a young
abbé, he not only discovered one of the species, but, by means of a
powerful microscope, detected the very branch whence the leaf had been
nipped. By dexterous management the _chef_, thus scientifically put on
the track, brought home the charge to the priest, who confessed the
murder of the young lady in a fit of jealousy, and, by depositing her
body, at night, amid the dead of humbler lineage, who had fallen in the
revolutionary strife, thought to conceal all knowledge of his crime.

The lessee of an extensive 'hotel' had reason to believe that a child
had entered and left the world in one of his tenants' apartments,
without the cognizance of a human being except the mother; and, aware,
as a landlord in Paris should be, of his responsibility to the municipal
government, he communicated his suspicions to the authorities. The rooms
were searched, the charge denied, and no proof elicited to warrant
further action; and here the matter would have ended in any other
country. But the police agent entrusted with the inquiry raked over the
contents of a pigsty in the courtyard, and discovered a square inch of
thin bone, which he exhibited to an anatomist, who pronounced it a
fragment of a new-born infant's skull; the hogs were instantly killed,
the contents of their stomachs examined, and small portions of the body
found. The question then arose whether the child was born alive; pieces
of the lungs were placed in a basin of water, and the fact that they
floated on its surface proved, beyond a doubt, that the child had
breathed; the crime of infanticide was then charged upon the unhappy
mother, who, appalled by this evidence of her guilt, confessed.

In the gray of the dawn a watchful observer may behold the two extremes
of Paris life ominously hinted;--a cloaked figure stealthily dropping a
swathed effigy of humanity, just 'sent into this breathing world,' in
the rotary cradle of the asylum for _enfants trouvés_, and a cart full
of the corpses of the poor, driven into the yard of a hospital for
dissection.

Summoned one evening at dusk to the sick chamber of a countryman, I
realized the shadows of life in Paris. From the dazzling Boulevard the
cab soon wound through dim thoroughfares, up a deserted acclivity, to a
gloomy porch. A cold mist was falling, and I heard the bell sound
through a vaulted arch with desolate echoes. When the massive door
opened, a lamp suspended from a chain revealed a paved _entresol_ and
broad staircase; there was something prison-like even in the patrician
dimensions of the edifice; the light nickered at every gust. Ascending,
I pulled a _cordon bleu_, and was admitted into the apartment. It
consisted of four places or rooms, the furniture of which was in the
neatest French style, both of wood and tapestry; but the fireplace was
narrow, and so ill-constructed that while the heat ascended the chimney
the smoke entered the room. A nurse, with one of those keen,
self-possessed faces and that efficient manner so often encountered in
Paris, ushered me to the invalid's presence. He was a fair specimen of a
philosophic bachelor inured to the life of the French metropolis;
everything about him was in good taste, from the model of the lamp to
the cover of the arm-chair; and yet an indescribable cheerlessness
pervaded his elegant lodging. The last play of Scribe, the day's
_Journal des Debats_, a bouquet, and a Bohemian glass, were on the
marble table at his side. His languid eye brightened and his feverish
hand tightened convulsively over mine; years had elapsed since he left
our native town; he had drunk of the cup of pleasure, and cultivated the
resources of literature and science in this their great centre; but now,
in the hour of physical weakness, the yearning for domestic and home
scenes filled his heart; and his mind reacted from the blandishments of
a luxurious materialism and a refined egotism of life. It was like
falling back upon the normal conditions of existence thus to behold the
'ills that flesh is heir to' in the midst of a city where such rich
outward provision for human activity and enjoyment fills the senses.
Excessive civilization has its morbid tendencies, and great refinement
in one direction is paralleled by an equal degree of savagery in
another. There is in absolute relation between the facilities for
pleasure and the frequency of suicide. Of all places in the world, Paris
is the most desolate to an invalid stranger. The custom of living there
in lodgings isolates the visitor; the occupants of the dwelling are not
alive to the claims of neighborhood; with his landlord he has only a
business and formal connection; thus thrown upon himself, without the
nerve or the spirits for external amusement, few situations are more
forlorn. The Parisian French are intensely calculating and selfish;
illness and grief are so alien to their tastes that, to the best of
their ability, they ignore and abjure them. As long as health permits,
out-of-door life or companionship solaces that within; the stranger may
be enchanted; but when confined to his apartment and dependent on chance
visitors or hireling services, he longs for a land where domestic life
and household comfort are better cultivated and understood.

The stranger's funeral is peculiarly sad everywhere, but in Paris its
melancholy is enhanced by the interference of foreign usages. Over the
dead as well as the living the municipal authorities claim instant
power, and the bereaved must submit to their time and arrangements in
depositing the mortal remains of the loved in the grave. The black
scarfs and chapeaux of the undertakers and their prescriptive orders
were strangely dissonant to the group of Americans collected at the
obsequies of a young countryman, and seemed incongruous when associated
with the simple Protestant ceremonial performed in another tongue. Under
the direction of those sable officials we entered the mourning coaches
and followed the plumed hearse. It is an impressive custom--one of the
humanities of the Catholic--to lift the hat at the sight of such a
procession; such an act, performed like this by prince and beggar in the
crowded street, so gay, busy, self-absorbed, bears affecting witness to
the common vicissitudes and instincts of mankind. The dead leaves
strewed the avenue of Pere la Chaise, and the bare trees creaked in the
gale as we threaded sarcophagi, tablets, and railed cenotaphs; in the
distance, smoke-canopied, stretched the vast city; around were countless
effigies of the dead of every rank, from the plain slab of the
undistinguished citizen to the wreathed obelisk of the hero, from the
ancient monument of Abelard and Heloise to the broken turf on the new
grave of poverty only designated by a wooden cross; gray clouds flitted
along the zenith, and a pale streak of light defined the wide horizon;
Paris with its frivolity, temples, business, pleasures, trophies and
teeming life, sent up a confused and low murmur in the distance; only
the wind was audible among the tombs. Never had the beautiful Church of
England services appeared to me so grand and pathetic as when here read
over the coffin of one who had died in exile, and with only a few of his
countrymen, most of them unacquainted even with his features, to attend
his burial.

However a change of government may interfere with a Parisian's freedom
of speech and pen, the autocrat is yet to appear who dares place an
interdict on his culinary aptitudes. The science of dining in Paris has,
notwithstanding, its new mysteries; and in order to be abreast of the
times, it is wise, instead of drawing on past experience, to take
counsel of a friend who holds the present clue to the labyrinth of bills
of fare and fair bills. The little cabinet of my favorite restaurant,
sacred to the initiated, had the same marble table, cheerful outlook,
pictured ceiling and breezy curtains,--the same look of elegant
snugness; but, when we had seated ourselves in garrulous conclave over
the _carte_, it was to the member of our party whose knowledge was of
the latest acquisition that we submitted the choice of a repast; and as
he discoursed of the mysterious excellences of _cotelletes a la
Victoria, rissoles a la Orleans, patés de fois gras a la Bonaparte,
paupicettes de veau a la Demidoff, truffes a la Perigord_, etc., we
realized that the same incongruous blending of associations, the same
zest for glory and dramatic instinct, ruled the world of cookery as of
letters, and that, with all the political vicissitudes since our last
dinner in Paris, her prandial distinction had progressed.

From the restaurant to the theatre, is, in Paris, a most natural
transition; and the play and players of the day will be found far more
closely representative of the social tone, the political creed, the
artistic tastes of the hour, than elsewhere. The drama, for instance, in
vogue not long since at the Vaudeville Theatre in the Place de la
Bourse, is one we can scarcely imagine successful in another city, at
least to such a degree. It was _Les Filles de Marbre_; and this is the
plot. The opening scene is at Athens, in the studio of Phidias. It is
the day after that on which Alcibiades cut off his dog's tail; and,
exulting in the effect produced by that exploit, he enters with the rich
Gorgias, who has ordered and paid Phidias in advance for statues of his
three friends, Laïs, Phryné, and Aspasia. He finds Phidias unwilling to
part with the statues, on which he has worked so long and ardently till,
like Pygmalion of old, he has fallen in love with his own creation; he
will not even allow Gorgias to see them, and the latter departs swearing
vengeance. Diogenes enters, and a satirical brisk dialogue ensues, at
the end of which Phidias draws aside a curtain and shows his work to
Diogenes, who, stoic as he is, can not refrain from an exclamation of
delight. The group is admirably arranged on the stage, and the effect is
very fine as Theä, a young slave, holds back the drapery from the group
while the moon illumines it with a soft light. At this moment an
approaching tumult is heard. Theä drops the curtain, and Gorgias with
his friends, heated with Cyprus wine, enters, accompanied by the
'myrmidons of the law.' He again demands the statues, for which Phidias
has already received his gold. Phidias expostulates, then entreats,--no,
Gorgias will have his statues. At this, Theä, who had long loved
Phidias, unknown to him, hardly noticed, never requited, throws herself
at Gorgias's feet and cries, 'Take me, sell me; I am young and strong,
but leave Phidias his statues.' Gorgias says, 'Who are you? Poor
creature, you are not worth over fifty drachmas! Away! Guards, do your
duty! Slaves, seize the statues.' Then Diogenes, hitherto half asleep on
a mat in the corner, cries, 'Stop, Gorgias! You always profess justice,
strict justice. Why don't you ask with whom of you the statues will
prefer to stay?' A shout of laughter from his jolly companions makes
Gorgias accede to this droll proposal. 'So be it!' cries he; and
Diogenes draws aside the curtain, and holds up his lantern, which, with
a strong French reflector, throws a powerful light on the upper part of
the group, with a fine and startling effect. The group represents
Aspasia seated, with a scroll and stylus, Laïs leaning over her, and
Phryné at her feet looking up, all draped, artistically _posed_, and the
three beautiful girls that perform the parts look as like marble as
possible.

'Now, Phidias,' cries Diogenes, 'come, what have you to say to your
marble girls?'

'Laïs, Aspasia, Phryné, I am Phidias. You owe me your existence, and I
love you; you know it, and that I am poor.'

'That's a bad argument, Phidias,' says Diogenes.

'I am poor, and have nothing but you. Stay by him to whom you owe your
glory and your immortality!'

The statues remain immovable.

Gorgias addresses them: 'I am Gorgias, the rich Athenian; I alone am as
rich as all the kings of Asia, and I offer you a palace paved with gold.
Aspasia, Laïs, Phryné, which of us do you choose?'

The statues turn their heads and smile faintly on Gorgias, who starts
and stands as if petrified. The Athenians look horror-struck. Phidias
covers his face with his hands, and, uttering a cry, falls to the
ground. A soft and enervating strain of music fills the air.

'By all the gods!' cries Gorgias, 'I believe the statues moved their
lips as if to smile upon me.'

'I know you by that smile, O girls of marble,' says
Diogenes,--'courtesans of the past, courtesans of the future!' and he
returns to his mat.

At this moment Theä's voice is heard in the far distance, singing a few
mystical, mournful bars of music, and the curtain falls.

This is the 'argument,'--the other four acts work it out.

The next act opens in a restaurant of to-day in the Bois de Boulogne,
near Paris. A young artist lives there, and falls desperately in love
with an actress, for whom he leaves his art, his mother, and his
betrothed, is ruined in purse, and returns at last, heart-broken, to
his old home, to die; the actress all the while sees his despair with
indifference, and proves herself therefore a '_fille de marbre_'

In another recent piece, we are told that a 'procession of nuns, dressed
in white, sing a lay at midnight. In the intervals, a chorus of frogs in
the neighboring swamp croak the refrain in unison. Sax, the great
brass-founder, who made the Last Trumpets for the 'Wandering Jew,' and
the instruments for the Band of the Guides, is engaged upon the
frogpipes required. The illusion will be heightened by characteristic
scenery and mephitic exhalations. M. Sax visited the pool in the Bois de
Boulogne, known as the _Marée d'Auteuil_, and brought back many useful
ideas in reference to the quadruped with whose vocal powers he desired
to become acquainted. The frog voices will be a series of eight,
representing a full octave.'

The Provincial, at Paris, is a standard theme for playwrights; what the
Scotch were to Johnson, Lamb, and Sidney Smith, is the native of
Provence or Brittany to the comic writers of the metropolis,--a nucleus
for wit and an occasion for practical jokes. One of the late pieces,
called 'My Uncle,' turned upon the devices of a wild youth to obtain
money from his simple-hearted relative in the country. For months a
pretended love affair, a marriage, and the birth of an heir, elicited
remittances, which were expended upon banquets, at which a bevy of gay
students applauded the ingenuity of their entertainer. At last the uncle
comes to town, and it becomes quite a study to carry on the game, which
yields occasion for innumerable salient contrasts between rustic
simplicity and city acumen. A diagnosis of the provincial's ways in
Paris, like every form of life there, has been given by a shrewd
observer, who mentions among other signs that the novice may be
recognized by the fact that he keeps his toothpick after dinner and
carries it to the theatre.

I found that marvelous actress, Rachel, before her visit to America,
much attenuated; indeed, she resembled a bundle of nerves electrified
with vitality; her bleached skin, thin arms, large, scintillating eyes,
and that indescribable something which marks the Jewish physiognomy,
gave her a weird, sibyl-like appearance, as of one wasted by long
vigils. There was in her glance and action the spasmodic inspiration
observable in Malibran towards the close of her career. The play was
Racine's Andromache, and the depth and energy of Hermione's emotions
were illustrated by a sudden transition of tone, a working of the
features, that a painter might study forever, and a gesture, bearing,
look and utterance which were the consummation of histrionic art; yet so
exclusively was this the ease, that admiration never lost itself in
sympathy; it was the perfection of acting, not of nature; it won and
chained the scrutinizing mind, but failed to sway the heart; it lacked
the magnetic element; and while the critic was baffled in the attempt to
pick a flaw, and the elocutionist in raptures at the sublime
possibilities of his art, it was Rachel, not Hermione, the genius of the
performer, not the reality of the character, that won the earnest
attention, and woke the constant plaudits. [A] That over-consciousness
which belongs to the French nature, so evident in their 'Confessions,'
their oratory, their manners, their conversation, and their life, and
which is the great reason of their want of persistence and
self-dependence in political affairs, modifies their ideal
representations on the stage as well as in literature. The process
described so philosophically by Coleridge, to lose 'self in an idea
dearer than self,' is the condition of all greatness. It sublimated the
life of Washington, and made it unique in the annals of nations; it
enabled Shakspeare to incarnate the elements of humanity in dramatic
creations, and Kean to reproduce them on the stage; it is the grand law
of the highest achievements in statesmanship, in letters, and in art,
without which they fall short of wide significance and enduring
vitality.

[Footnote A: The very description of her enthusiastic admirers suggests
that such were the original traits and the special character of Rachel.
At first we are told by the patron who earliest recognized her genius,
'a delirious popularity surrounded the young _tragedienne_, and with her
the antique tragedy which she had revived.' How different from the
original relation of Kemble, Kean, or Siddons to the Shaksperian drama!
Then the manner in which she prepared herself for artistic triumph is
equally suggestive of the artificial and the conventional: 'Elle se
drape,' we are told, 'avec un art merveilleux; au theatre elle fait
preuve d'études intelligentes de la statuaire antique.' It was in the
external form rather than by sympathetic emotion that she wooed the
tragic muse. Véron compares her to Thiers. 'C'est la même netteté de
vues, la même ardeur, les mêmes ruses vigéreuses, la même fecondité
d'expedients, la même tableau phllosophique que ne la comprend ni la
vengeance ni les haines, qui se contente de negocier avec les inimities,
d'apaiser les rancunes et de conquerir toutes les influences, toutes les
amitiés qui peuvent devenir utiles.']

Although thus destitute of great central principles, nowhere is human
life more enriched by minor philosophy; it may be a fate, a routine, a
drudgery, and an accident in other parts of the world, but in Paris it
is or can easily be made an art. The science of substitution, the law of
compensation, nowhere more obviously triumphs; taste cheaply gratified
atones for limited destinies; manners yield a charm, which, for the
time, renders us oblivious of age; tact proves as good a resource as
learning, wit as beauty, cheerfulness as fortune. The _boudoir_, by
means of chintz, gauze, and human vivacity, is as prolific of fine talk
and good company as the drawing-room. A bunch of violets or a box of
mignonnette suggests to sensitive imaginations the whole cornucopia of
Flora. Perhaps the eclectic provision for enjoyment in the French
capital was never more apparent than during the sojourn of the allied
armies there after the battle of Waterloo. It was as good as a play
illustrative of national manners and taste, to note how Russian, German,
Cossack, and English, hussar, diplomat, and general, found the dish, the
pastime, and the observance each most coveted, when that vast city was
like a bivouac of the soldiers of Europe.

The communicative habit and social tendency of life, under every aspect,
in Paris, often promotes success by making individuals famous,--a
process far easier of achievement there than in any other metropolis. A
poor fellow who opened a _café_, and had so little patronage as at the
end of his first quarter to be on the verge of bankruptcy, resorted, one
day, to the expedient of firing a heavily-charged musket in the midst of
his neat but unfrequented saloon. The report instantly brought half a
score of policemen, two gens d'armes, and a crowd of idlers, to the
spot; curiosity was on tiptoe to hear of a murder, a suicide, or an
infernal machine; strange rumors began to spread from the crowd within
to the street; and a long investigation was held on the premises.
Meantime people wanted refreshments, which the hitherto indolent waiters
of the _café_ supplied; the place was found to be quite snug and
tasteful, and the proprietor quite a lion; thenceforth his credit was
established in the neighborhood, and a regular set of customers
liberally sustained his enterprise. Dr. Véron informs us that, after
waiting six weeks for a patient, upon first commencing practice, he had
the good fortune to stop the bleeding nose of a _concièrge_, in his
vicinity, which had resisted all the usual appliances; the news of his
exploit was soon noised abroad, its merit exaggerated, and he was
astonished to receive six or seven patients a day, attracted by his
sudden reputation. Unfortunately, however, one day an old lady, of much
consideration in that quartier, requested him to bleed her; she was so
fat that he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to open a vein, when
she rose indignantly and pronounced him an _imbecile_,--a judgment which
was so quickly adopted by the gossips, that in less than a week he sank
into his original obscurity.

Another speciality of Parisian life occurred in the person of an old
man, who came hither in youth, and while pursuing his studies received
news of the loss of his fortune,--a pittance only remained; and so
enamored had he become of the means of study and the monastic freedom
here possible for the poor dreamer, that, hiring a cheap and obscure
lodging, he remained a voluntary exile, unallured by the attractions of
American enterprise, which soon revived the broken fortunes of his
brothers. A more benign cosmopolite or meek disciple of learning it
would be difficult to find; unlike his restless countrymen, he had
acquired the art of living in the present;--the experience of a
looker-on in Paris was to him more satisfactory than that of a
participant in the executive zeal of home.

Such instances form a pleasing contrast to the outward gayety we
habitually associate with Paris. It boasts a world of patient labor.
Emile Souvestre has drawn some faithful and charming pictures of these
scenes, wherein philosophy and cheerfulness illumine the haunts of
modest toil. In England and America only artists of great merit enjoy
consideration; but in Paris the pursuit itself insures countenance and
sympathy, which in themselves yield vast encouragement. There are more
odd characters ensconced in the nooks of this capital than anywhere else
in Europe;--men who have become unconsciously metropolitan
friars--living in celibate dens, haunting libraries and gardens,
subsisting on a bare competence, and working out some darling theory or
speculative problem; lonely in the midst of a crowd, and content in
their self-imposed round of frugality and investigation.

I found the dissatisfied spirit of a young artist, whom I had known in
America, here completely soothed; instead of feeling himself overpowered
by the commercial spirit of his own country, one of a neglected
minority, striving in vain to excite interest in a vocation too
profitless for a community absorbed in trade, politics, and fashion, he
now experienced the advantage of a recognized class, and the excitement
of a fraternity in art; his life, studies, aims were those of hundreds
as limited in their circumstances and as ideal in their aspirations;
galleries, studios, lectures, models, criticism, illustrious men, noble
examples, friendly words and true companionship, made his daily life,
independent of its achievements, one of self-respect, of growing
knowledge, and assured satisfaction. Without some pursuit thus enlisting
the higher powers and justifying, as it were, the independent career of
a resident, it is astonishing how the crust of selfishness gathers over
the heart in Paris; the habit of living with an exclusive view to
personal enjoyment, where the arrangements of life are so favorable,
becomes at last engrossing; and a soulless machine, with no instincts
but those of self-gratification, is often the result, especially if no
ties of kindred mitigate the hardihood of epicurism.

We soon learn to echo Rochefoucauld's words as he entered Mazarin's
carriage,--'everything happens in France;' and, like Goethe, cast
ourselves on the waves of accident with a more than Quixotic
presage,--if not of actual adventure, at least of adventurous
observation; for it is a realm where Fashion, the capricious tyrant of
modern civilization, has her birth, where the '_vielle femme remplissait
une mission importante et tutelaire pour tous les âges_;' where the
_raconteur_ exists not less in society than in literature; the elysium
of the scholar, the nucleus of opinion, the arena of pleasure, and the
head-quarters of experiment, scientific, political, artistic, and
social.

Imagine a disciplined mind alive to the lessons of the past and yet with
sympathy for casual impressions, free, intent and reflective,--and Paris
becomes a museum of the world. Such a visitor wanders about the French
capital with the zest of a philosopher; he warms at the frequent
spectacle of enjoyable old age, notwithstanding the hecatombs left at
Moscow and Waterloo, Sebastopol and Magenta; he reads on the dome of the
Invalides the names of a hundred battle-fields; muses on the proximity
of the lofty and time-stained Cathedral, and the little book-stall,
where poor students linger in the sun; detects a government spy in the
loquacious son of Crispin who acts as porter at his lodgings; pulls the
_cordon bleu_ at a dear author's oaken door on the _quatrième etage_ in
a social mood, and recalls Wellington's marquee on the Boulevard
Italien, in the midst of the gay throng; notes the dexterity of a
peripatetic shoeblack at his work; loves to sup in one of the
restaurants of the Palais Royal, because there Dr. Franklin was
entertained by the Duke of Orleans; remembers, at the church of St.
Genevieve, that Abelard once lectured on its site; and, gazing on the
beautiful ware in one of the cabinets of the Louvre, muses of the holy
patience of Palissy. By the handsome quays and bridges of the Seine, he
tries to realize that once only an islet covered with mud hovels met the
wanderer's view. He smiles at the abundance of fancy names, some chosen
for their romantic sound, and others for the renowned associations,
which are attached to vocalist, shop, and mouchoir. He separates, in his
thought, the incongruous emblems around him at this moment,--tricolor
and cresent, St. George and the Lilies, 'God save the Queen' and High
Mass, banners that have floated over adverse armies since the
crusades,--amicably folded over the corpse of a French veteran! Nor are
character and manners less suggestive to such an observer; if an
American, he beholds with astonishment, after all he has heard of the
proverbial courtesy of the French, women habitually yield the wall to
men, and stops with ill-disguised impatience, on returning from an
afternoon's ride, to have his carriage examined at the gate; contrasts
the degraded state of the lower orders with the general urbanity and
quietness of demeanor and the stern sway of political rule; marks the
little crucifix and cup of holy water at the head of the peasant's bed,
and the diamond cross on the lace kerchief of the kneeling empress;
recognizes the force of character, the self-dependence, the mental
hardihood of the women, the business method displayed in their exercise
of sentiment, and the exquisite mixture in their proceedings of tact,
calculation, and geniality.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE TRUE BASIS.


Never at any stage of American history was there such a crisis of ideas
as at present, and never was there such urgent necessity of setting
promptly, vigorously and clearly before the people the great and new
principles which this crisis is bringing to life. So vast are the issues
involved, so tremendous their inevitable consequences, that we acquit of
exaggeration the statesman who, in comparing even the gradual unfolding
of the mighty past with this our present, exclaimed, 'Now is the first
of the world's progress.'[A]

[Footnote A: Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson.]

The reader is doubtless perfectly familiar with the fact that in the
battle between the North and the South two opposite principles are
involved,--the same which have been at the bottom of all wars for
freedom, from the beginning of time. The one party believes that one
portion of society must flourish at the expense of another part, of a
permanently sunken class; while the other holds that history proves that
the lot of all persons in a commonwealth is capable of being gradually
ameliorated, and that in any case it is our sacred duty to legislate for
the poor, on this basis, by allowing them equal rights, and making every
exertion to extend the best blessings of education to them, and open to
every man, without distinction, every avenue of employment for which he
is qualified.

The Northern party, or that of equal rights and free labor, like their
predecessors, hold many ideas which coming years will see realized,
for--as has always been the case in these contests--science and learning
are always on the liberal side. By a strange accident, for the first
time almost in history, the Republican party is for once in its
constituted rights, on its own ground, while the feudal or conservative
wing form the aggressors. As of old, too, the Southern conservatives are
enforcing theories once the property of their foes, who have now
advanced to broader, nobler, and more gloriously liberal views.

For instance, the men of the South believe that labor and capital are
still antagonisms. Now it is true enough that they _once_ were, and that
when the _people_ in different ages first began to rebel against their
hereditary tyrants, the workman was only a serf to his capitalist
employer. That was the age when demagogues flourished by setting 'the
poor' against 'the rich.' A painful, sickening series of wars it was,
ending too often by labor's killing itself with its adversary. Then, a
foul, false 'democracy' was evolved, which was virtually a rank
aristocracy, not of nobility, but of those who could wheedle the poor
into supporting them. Such was the history of nearly all 'radicalism'
and 'democracy' from the days of Cleon and Alcibiades down to the
present time.

But the enormous developments of science and of industry have of late
years opened newer and broader views to the world. As capital has
progressed in its action it is seen that at every step labor is
becoming--slowly, but surely, as Heaven's law--identified with it. The
harmony of interests is now no longer a vague Fourieristic notion,--for
nothing is plainer than that the more the operative becomes interested
in the success of the enterprise which employs him, the better is it for
him and it. And all _work_ in it--the owner and the employee. But then,
we are told that 'the owner gets the profits.' Does he? Sum up the
companies and capitalists who have failed during the past
decade,--compare what they have lost with what they have paid their
workmen, and then see who have really pocketed the money, and whether on
the whole the capitalists have been more than properly repaid for their
risks, and wear and tear of _brains_. To be sure we are as yet far from
having realized a regularly arranged harmony of interests. But I see
that here, even in this New England, there is nothing which the great
and most intelligent capitalists desire more than this harmony, or a
system in which every man's brains and labor shall be properly and
abundantly remunerated, since they see (as all must see who reflect)
that the nearer we approach such practical adjustment of forces, the
less liable will they be to fail. And the world, as it has reflected
that labor has flourished among barren rocks, covering them with smiling
villages, under the fostering care of capital, when fertile Southern
lands are a wilderness for want of this harmony between it and capital,
has concluded that the old battle between rich and poor was a folly. The
obscure hamlets of New England, which have within thirty years become
beautiful towns, with lyceums, libraries, and schools, are the most
striking examples on earth of the arrant folly of this gabble of
'capital as opposed to labor.' In the South, however, the old theory is
held as firmly as in the days when John Randolph prophesied Northern
insurrections of starving factory-slaves against manufacturing lords,
and--as President Lincoln recently intimated in his Message--the effort
is there being made to formally enslave labor to capital. That is to
say, the South not only adheres to the obsolete theory that labor is a
foe to capital, but proposes to subdue it to the latter. The progress of
free labor in the North is, however, a constantly increasing proof that
labor _is_ capital.

Let the reader carefully digest this statement, and regard it not as an
abstraction of political economy, but as setting forth a vital truth
intimately allied to our closest interests, and to a future involving
the most serious emergencies. We are at a crisis which demands a new
influx of political thought and new principles. Our Revolution, with its
Constitution, was such an epoch; so too was the old strife between
Federalism and Democracy, in which both sides contended for what were
their rights. Since those days we have gone further, and the present
struggle, precipitated by the madness and folly of the South, sees
those who understand the great and glorious question of free labor with
its affinities to capital, endeavoring to prepare the way for a grand
coming North American Union, in which poor and rich hand in hand shall
press on, extending civilization, and crushing to the ground all
obsolete demagogueism, corruption, and folly.

It is time that the word 'radical' were expunged from our political
dictionary. Under the old system of warfare men were regarded as being
divided into the 'poor,' who were 'out' of capital, and the rich, who
were 'in.' The progress of good, honest, unflinching _labor_ is causing
men to look higher than these old limitations. We want no 'outs' or
'ins'--in this country every man should be 'in,' given heart and soul to
honest industry. And no man or woman who can _work_ is without capital,
for every such person is a capital in self. When politics are devoted,
as they must be, to extending education and protecting industry, we
shall hear no more of these absurd quarrels between the 'conservative'
and 'radical' elements.

When the government shall have triumphed in this great struggle,--when
the South, with its obsolete theories of the supremacy of capital over
labor, shall have yielded to the great advancing truth of the age,--when
free labor, rendered freer and nobler than ever, shall rule all powerful
from ocean to ocean, then we shall see this great American republic
restored to its original strength and beauty, progressing in the path
laid down by our Revolutionary forefathers, and stripped of the cruel
impediments which have clogged its course for years, proving to the
world the great assertion of all time, that man is capable of
self-government. It is this which lies before us,--neither a gloomy
'conservative' prospect of old-fashioned unchangeability, and still less
the gorgeous but preposterous dreams of Fourierite or other socialist;
but simply the healthy future of a hard-working country, in which every
impediment shall be removed from free labor and its every right
respected. And to bring this to pass there is but one first step
required. Push on the war, support the Administration, triumph at any
risk or cost, and then make of this America one great free land.
Freedom! _In hoc signo vinces_.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BLACK FLAG.

  You wish that slavers once again
    May freely darken every sea,
  Nor think that honor takes a stain
    From what the world calls piracy;
  And now your press in thunder tones
    Calls for the Black Flag in each street--
  O, add to it a skull and bones,
    And let the banner be complete.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE ACTRESS WIFE.

[CONCLUDED.]


After a few moments he arose, and, staggering towards me, grasped my
hand and shook it violently, stuttering out, 'Evelyn Afton is an
angel--that is, your wife, I mean, would have made a greater actress
than Mrs. Siddons. Sefton's a rascal--d----d rascal. You see, Mr. Bell,
I'm not what I was once. The cursed liquor--that's what made me this.
John Foster once held his head as high as anybody. Want, sir, absolute
want, brought me from my "high estate"--_id est_, liquor. Cursed liquor
made me poor, and poverty made me mean.' He continued for some time in a
broken strain, interrupted by hiccoughs and sobs, exhibiting in his
demeanor the remains of former brilliancy, but now everything
impaired--voice, manner, eyesight and intellect--by excessive
indulgence.

The result of my conference was learning that Foster had been the agent
of Sefton in a conspiracy against my wife. Foster had of late years made
a precarious livelihood by occasional engagement on the stages, and a
few weeks since had strayed to this city. Being well known to Sefton,
the latter had promised him ample provision if he would feign illness,
induce my wife to visit him from motives of charity, and subsequently,
when called upon for testimony, allege that her visits were the renewal
of an old licentious intimacy. To these disgraceful propositions
Foster's degradation acceded, though in his better moments he contemned
his employer and himself.

'What,' I meditated, 'can be Sefton's design? Can it be to compel my
wife to his passion through threats of destroying her reputation?' I
smiled as I thought of the futility of such a scheme, for Evelyn would
treat with the most scornful defiance any attempt at coercion, although
resistance would sacrifice not only her honor but her life. But this can
not be his real object, else why would he have advised a divorce? I have
it. He is really infatuated with her, and desires to free her from my
possession that she may come into his--knowing his ability to clear her
character, should it appear contaminated, but reckoning chiefly on its
preservation by my own delicacy from any public stain.

Foster informed me that he always made Sefton aware of my wife's
visits,--as she appointed the evenings for them,--and that Sefton
attended the interviews, concealed in the next room. I therefore
arranged with Foster to inform Sefton that she would be present the next
evening, and then took my leave, Foster repeating again and again,
'Sefton's a rascal--Mrs. Bell's an angel. Only want, absolute want, made
me undertake this. Yes, sir,--I assure you,--_want_.'

In pursuance of the arrangement, I visited Foster the next evening,
arriving before Sefton, and going into the next apartment. Sefton soon
after entered and engaged in a conversation with Foster, which fully
corroborated the information I had previously obtained. During its
progress I entered upon them. Sefton was amazed, and struck with a
consciousness of discovered guilt.

'I am now fully aware,' I said, 'Mr. Sefton, of your cause for interest
in my affairs, and of the manner in which you have evinced it'

He had by a violent effort recovered his equanimity, and
said,--'Prevarication or denial I suppose to be useless. You have
probably outbid me for the confidence of this miserable villain. What do
you propose to do?'

'Were we both young,' I replied, 'there would be only one answer to that
question. It would be necessary to have recourse to a duel. As it is, I
am too old a man to be indulged leniently by the public in such a
proceeding. Moreover, I am conscientiously averse to initiating it.
Besides, it will not be permissible in this case to drag my wife's name
into any publicity. My only alternative, therefore, is to remain content
with the private discovery of your rascality, and hereafter to forbid
you any association with what pertains to me or my affairs.'

'I will obviate all your objections,' he replied. 'I will assume the
initiative, and attribute your acceptance of a challenge to such causes
as will excuse you to the public. Some story may easily be devised which
will cover the real motives for our proceeding.'

'_Now_,' I meditated, 'I have the clue to the mystery. Relying properly
on my wife's pride, and (alas!) her probable want of regard for me, this
man was convinced that she would not relate his attempt upon her, and
that I should never therefore be able to trace his connection with the
conspiracy. My opportune knowledge has counteracted his designs.
Evidently he has determined to possess Evelyn in marriage, since he can
in no other way. Therefore he suggested the divorce; and now, being an
excellent shot (while unaware of my own skill), he counts on removing me
by death--thus destroying all proof of his villany, and at the same time
all obstacles in his path to her. Well, I am not called on to meet him,
but I will take this hazard, as well as every other, for her.'

I signified my assent to his proposals, and there, on the scene of his
detected iniquity, we calmly discussed the necessary arrangements.

The next day, in pursuance of them, we met as by accident in the most
frequented hotel, and, after the usual salutations, engaged in
conversation, handling various papers, as if transacting a negotiation
of some kind. Gradually we warmed and our tones became louder, until
finally he exclaimed, 'It is false, Mr. Bell! Entirely false! I never
made any such representation.'

'Perhaps,' I answered mildly, 'you mean to intimate that I am mistaken,
and would not charge me, as your words imply, with wilful falsehood.'

'You must make your own application, sir,' he rejoined. 'I say your
statement is false--so false that a mere mistake can scarcely be
considered responsible for it.'

'Such a reiteration of your insult,' I said, 'leaves me no redress
except by force. As you gave the first offense, I return it to your
keeping.' So saying, I struck him.

By-standers, who had been attracted around, now seized us, and there
was, of course, much excitement and confusion.

'This is a simple matter of private business, gentlemen,' said Mr.
Sefton, 'and its settlement will take place elsewhere.'

'Yes, gentlemen,' I added, 'your interference now is not required, and
hereafter will be of no avail.' So we separated.

I proceeded to my place of business and retired to my secret chamber,
giving orders to admit no one to me (lest I should be disturbed by the
officiousness of friends seeking to 'arrange' matters), but to send up
any letters. Soon a formal challenge arrived, to which I despatched a
formal answer. At the hour of closing business I sought my chief clerk,
whom I knew to be a sporting man, and briefly informed him of the
anticipated duel, which was appointed for an early hour the next
morning, the weapons pistols, and the place a short distance from the
city, and engaged him to act as my second.

I occupied the evening in the necessary preparations of my affairs for
the contingency of a fatal issue. Near midnight I went to my residence,
and in the seclusion of my sleeping chamber passed an hour in a
tumultuous variety of thought. I had briefly written, for Evelyn's
perusal, a history of my life as connected with her, and a true version
of the circumstances leading to the duel. 'If I fall'--I sadly
thought--'will she appreciate my self-offering? Shall I leave her a
legacy of sorrow, if my death under these circumstances would grieve
her? No! I will die as I have thus far lived--making no expression of
the love which sways my soul.' I tore my letter into fragments and
burned them. Passing silently into her chamber,--the first time I had
entered it for long months,--I kneeled at her bedside and sobbed. By the
dim light I could trace the marks of grief--cold, heart-consuming
grief--on her beautiful features--marks which in the day-time resolute
pride effaced; as the furrows in the rocks of the sea-shore are seen at
ebb-tide, but are concealed when the waters bound at their flood. Slowly
and cautiously I approached my lips to hers, and lightly touched them.
She stirred, and I sank to the floor. Her sleep being but lightly
disturbed, I glided like a ghost from the chamber, and with a
heart-rending groan threw myself on my bed and forced forgetfulness and
slumber.

All parties were on the field at the appointed hour, and the
preliminaries were quickly arranged. There was in Sefton's countenance
the expression of deliberate criminality, encouraged by the expectation
of an easy triumph. Immediately upon the word, he fired. The ball grazed
my breast, tore from my shirt-front a pin, and, glancing off, fell into
a creek which partly encircled the ground. Had he been a moment less
precipitate in his determination to ensure my death, the slight movement
I would have made in raising my arm to fire would probably have changed
my position sufficiently to have received the bullet. My shot followed
immediately upon his. He was seen to stagger, but declared himself
unhurt, and demanded a second shot. The pistols were prepared and
delivered. I noticed that Sefton received his with the left hand. We
were again placed, and just as the word were being given, he fell to the
ground. On examination it appeared that at the first fire my ball had
struck immediately in front of the arm and shattered the clavicle,
thence passing--in one of the freaks peculiar to bullets--immediately
beneath the flesh, half round the body, lodging under the opposite
shoulder. He had fainted from the wound.

Of course the duel was ended. Sefton was confined to his house for
weeks, and on recovering removed to Texas, where in a few months
afterward he died from _mania a potu_.

On returning home, I found that the tidings of my difficulty with
Sefton, and its anticipated consequences, had been communicated to my
wife. She met me in the hall, her eyes flashing, but her manner evincing
more tenderness than I had ever before witnessed in it. 'Is this true,
Mr. Bell,' she asked, 'that public rumor has informed me? Have you had a
quarrel with Mr. Sefton? Have you fought with him?'

'It is true, my dear,' I replied. 'I have just returned from a duel.'

'Are you injured? Tell me,' she exclaimed, passionately.

'Not in the least,' I replied, 'but desperately--hungry.'

'And he?'

'I believe he is quite severely wounded. He was carried from the field
insensible.'

'Thank God,' she exclaimed.

I knew it was on her lips to tell me that I had been drawn into a
conflict by a villain, who had met his just deserts, but I forestalled
all explanations by demanding my breakfast, and after her first emotions
had subsided, merely gave her a matter-of-fact account of our pretended
quarrel, and of the duel.

But I laid up in my heart, as a sweet episode in my desolate life, the
anxiety she had manifested for my safety.

Public conversation and the newspapers were for a time employed on the
duel, but fortunately the truth was not suggested in the remotest
degree.

I provided liberally for Foster, and sent him from the city. Where he
now is I know not. He had informed Evelyn, by a letter, that, his health
having improved, he designed to remove.

I had long since learned Frank's early history, and, through persons to
whose patronage I had commended him and who had visited his studio at
Florence, was well acquainted with all his proceedings. My charity
towards him was producing ample fruits.

A few months after the duel, Evelyn and I were making a tour in Europe.

At a comparatively early hour on the morning after our arrival in
Florence, we proceeded, without previous announcement, to visit Frank's
studio. Being ushered into an antechamber of the rather luxurious range
of apartments, which, as I was aware, he occupied, in company with
several other bachelors, I merely sent him word that a gentleman and
lady had called to see his works, the servant informing us that he was
at breakfast. Of this our own ears received a sufficient evidence, for,
from an adjacent apartment, we heard not only the rattle of table
service in industrious requisition, but conversation and laughter, which
proved that the bachelors were jolly over their meal. Indeed, their
mutual rallying was not altogether of the most delicate kind, and
several favorite signoritas were allude to with various degrees of
insinuation. In all this, Frank, whose voice I could well distinguish
(its echoes had never left my ear), and which I was satisfied, from
Evelyn's peculiar expression, that she also recognized, bore a prominent
part. Evelyn was astonished. Frank soon appeared, looking the least like
the imaginative and love-vitalized artist possible, and entirely like
the gay young dog I knew he had become. The confused character of
_their_ greetings may be conceived. But of this I professed to be
entirely uncognizant, and, after a hasty visit to the studio, gave Frank
an invitation to dinner on the succeeding day, and we departed.

The money with which I had liberally supplied Frank had induced him to
enter with a youthful zest into the pleasures of life, and his dream of
love for Evelyn had attenuated into a mere memory. He was now a
successful and courted artist. I was possessed of another fact in
reference to him--that he was very much domesticated in an American
family residing in the city, one of whose young lady members was greatly
disposed, much to Frank's satisfaction, to recompense to him whatever
subtractions from his fund of love had previously been wasted on Evelyn.
Access to this family had been secured to Frank on my recommendation,
given before they left America. I conveyed Evelyn to their residence,
and, after also inviting them to our proposed dinner, we returned to our
temporary home.

I was careful not to intrude on Evelyn during the evening, leaving her
alone to struggle with the melancholy which I knew the incidents of the
day must induce.

Frank arrived early the next day. Evelyn's presence had evidently
renewed the power of his former feelings. Indeed, had opportunity
offered, he was prepared to give way to them, but I was careful that
none should be afforded. When our other guests arrived he was thrown
into unexpected confusion. The conflict between the past and the present
love--the ideal and the real--the shadow and the substance--the memory
and the actual--was painful, yet ridiculous to look upon. I calmly
watched, without giving any symptom of observation, the results of my
strategy, and never did a chess-player more rejoice over the issue of a
hard-fought contest. Evelyn, as I perceived, soon discovered all the
circumstances, and I could trace the conflict of passions in her
bosom--the revulsion at Frank's infidelity, yet the spontaneous
acknowledgment of her heart that he had acted wisely. She was also
reflecting, I was confident, on the weakness that constrained him to
abandon the worship of her image,--however vain and unsatisfactory it
might be,--and to elevate on the altar of his affections such a goddess
as supplied her place. For the young female in whose service Frank was
enrolled was a plump, merry and matter-of-fact girl, destitute of
genius, though possessing all the qualities which adapt woman to fulfill
the duties of the domestic relations.

My time for a final demonstration had now arrived. In the despair of her
abandonment, Evelyn must, either welcome me as her deliverer, or she
must perish in her pride. Death alone could sever us--death alone
furnished me a remedy for the deprivation of her love.

In one of the large, gloomy apartments of the dilapidated palace we
occupied, I sat alone as the twilight was gathering. My pistol case was
on the table at my side. I rang the bell, and directed the servant who
answered it to desire Evelyn's presence, and bring lights. She soon
appeared--cold, passive, incurious, yet beneath this I could see the
confined struggle of passion.

I remarked on her looks as peculiar, and expressed a fear that she was
unwell. No, she assured me, her health was as usual. Perhaps, then, she
did not find her stay in Florence agreeable. Perfectly so. She had no
desire to go or to remain, except as I had arranged in the programme of
our tour. But, I urged, she seemed dejected. Something must have
occurred to depress her mind. Not at all. She was unaware that her humor
was different from ordinary.

'Indeed, Evelyn,' said I, 'there is deception in this, and I insist on
an explanation.'

She looked surprised, but did not yet comprehend my purport; so
answered, in a proper, wife-like manner, that my anxiety had deceived
me--that in all respects her feelings, and, so far as she knew, her
appearance, differed not from what they had been.

'Well, then,' said I, 'your feelings and appearance must be changed. I
will tolerate them no longer.'

Her features evinced the greatest astonishment. 'You are inexplicable,'
she said. 'May I beg to know your meaning?'

'Know it? You shall, and you shall conform yourself to it. Resistance
will be vain, for (displaying the pistols) I have the means of
coercion.'

She thought I was mad, and rose on the impulse to summon help.

'Do not stir a step,' I said, aiming a pistol at her, 'or it will be
your last.' She stopped, without exhibiting the least symptom of fear,
but simply because she saw that to proceed would be useless.

'Ha! ha! Evelyn,' said I, forcing an imitation of incoherent laughter,
'I am but trifling with you. I am not mad. I sought but to rouse some
passion in you--either of fear or of anger. But, alas! I have not
sufficient power over you even for that. Sit down. I have something to
relate. When I have ended, these pistols may be useful for one or both
of us. But you do not fear them. I have long known that life was too
valueless to you for fear of losing it to make any impression.'

She saw that something unusual was impending--what she did not fully
understand, but calmly took her seat to await it. At this moment a
servant knocked and entered with a letter. I mechanically opened it and
read. It was an announcement from my partners that my inattention to the
business had involved us all in ruin. The clerk to whom I had entrusted
it (the sporting character before mentioned) had defaulted and fled. He
had contracted large debts in the name of the firm, and gambled away all
the accessible funds. The ruin was supposed to be irretrievable, and
with many bitter reproaches I was summoned to return with speed to
extricate affairs, and--make such reparation as I could.

The letter filled me with almost demoniacal joy. I was ruined, and for
her sake. I gloated over the thought.

'These weapons will now be useless,' said I. 'Place them on the shelf
beside you. This letter will answer in their stead.'

She obeyed me, and I then related the information I had received. 'This
ruin comes upon me through you.' She thought I was about to make a
vulgar complaint of extravagance, and for once flushed with anger.
'Remain entirely quiet,' I said. 'Hear me, but do not interrupt by word
or gesture. You do not yet understand me.'

Then I entered on all the particulars of my life; recounted my passion
for her; told how in my mad infatuation I had bargained for her; how in
my selfish exultation I had assumed all the freedoms of love, never
stopping to question my right to exercise them; how I was aroused from
my stupid content by accidentally witnessing her interview with Frank. I
related the feelings this excited within me; how for the first time I
learned the miserable and contemptible part I had acted; how I then
understood the sorrow of her life; how I would have crushed out my love
and given her to Frank, had there been any practicable way; how, knowing
that the only chance for happiness to both was in mutual love, I had
determined to gain hers by every act of devotion; how I sought to give
her the only relation to Frank she could properly bear--his
benefactress. I told her of my secret studies, designed to fit me for
companionship with her; of my withdrawing with her into the wilderness,
that her grief might be alleviated in the inspiring presence of
uncontaminated nature; of my expenditures to gratify her wishes and
tastes. I narrated the incidents which preceded the duel, and informed
her that I was perfectly acquainted with Sefton's object in seeking an
encounter with me; that I gratified him because willing to undertake
every hazard for her sake. Finally, I avowed my knowledge of all the
disappointment her heart had experienced by Frank's inconstancy.' know
you feel, to-night,' I said, 'that existence is an imposture--worse than
the meanest jiggle. So do I. The only thing that can render it a reality
is love. I intended to say to you, let us end it. For two years, I have
borne the mask of a hypocrite that I might thus tell you of my idolatry,
and say give me love or die. This letter necessitates a change of
purpose. I welcome it as announcing that my sacrifice is
complete--inadequate in comparison with the one you made in uniting
yourself to me, but all that I have to give. It is requisite that I must
yet live to do others justice--to provide for our children; although
they have been valueless to me since I knew that their souls were not
links between ours. But you I release. Before dawn I shall be on my
return. The provision for your future, thank heaven, no demands of
justice can infringe. Hereafter know me not as your husband, but as one
who wronged you, devoted his all to reparation, and failed.'

I rose--weak and tottering--and passed to the door. I caught but a
glimpse of her face. There was in it, and particularly in her
eyes,--which, perhaps, on account of her dramatic cultivation, had the
faculty of concentrating in a wonderful manner the most powerful as well
as the most indefinable expressions,--a peculiar light, which then I did
not understand, but afterwards, oh, too well. Fool, fool, that I was,
after all my anxious scrutiny of her moods through two years of
intensest agony, not to understand this one. The alchemist, who wasted
his life in vigils over his crucible, but stood uncognizant of the gold
when it gleamed lustrously before him, was not more a dolt. Thrice
afterward I beheld that light in her glorious eyes. To my spiritual
sight I can ever recall it. When you asked me her history, those orbs of
beauty beamed out upon me with that same fascinating light.

       *       *       *       *       *

I went immediately to America. My ruin was entire. I had greatly
embarrassed my fortune in wild extravagances for Evelyn, and the
remainder I surrendered to my partners. Their criminations were somewhat
assuaged, and our partnership relations being dissolved, the business
was reorganized, and I was engaged in a humble clerical capacity. Moody
and taciturn, I was regarded simply as the ordinary victim of a
recklessly spendthrift wife, and was ridiculed and pitied as such. What
cared I for ridicule or pity?

A letter came from Evelyn, stating that she designed resuming her
profession, and would appear immediately in London. Sometime in the
Spring I should hear from her again.

Accompanying the letter was a formal legal surrender of such property as
she possessed by my gift or otherwise, and a demand that I should apply
it to cancel my obligations. She would hereafter, she said, provide for
herself. Except a small reservation for the benefit of the children, I
complied with her direction. No mandate of hers would I disobey.

So existence dragged on. I resided in a humble dwelling with my two
children. Their presence did not soothe me,--their infantile affection
made no appeal to my heart,--but their dependence claimed my
care.--Memories of Evelyn alone possessed me. I secured full files of
London papers, and watched for notices of her appearance. At last they
came. A new star, the papers said, had suddenly appeared, unheralded, in
the theatrical firmament, and rapidly culminated in the zenith. She was
understood to be an American lady, formerly an actress, who had returned
to the stage on account of domestic difficulties. Some papers intimated
that her husband was a brute, who had forsaken her; others, that by a
series of mischances she had been compelled to the stage to support a
husband and numerous dependent relations. Lengthy criticisms on her
various performances were inserted, most of them stuffed with the
pseudo-taste and finical ostentation of knowledge prevalent in that
department of newspaper literature, but all according her the most
exalted merit. The tragedies involving the intense domestic affections
were those she had selected for her _rôles_. Romeo and Juliet, Evadne,
Douglas, Venice Preserved, and others of that class, were mentioned. The
critics, however, devoted their most enthusiastic encomiums to her
performance of Imogen in Shakspeare's Cymbeline, a version of which, it
seems, she had herself adapted. The reproduction of this piece, which
had vanished from the modern _repertoire_, attracted marked attention.
Her rendering of 'Imogen'--was pronounced superb.

The papers also made passing allusions to her personal beauty. Soon
paragraphs appeared concerning the attentions of Lord A---- and the Earl
of B---- to her; of the infatuation of certain members of the various
diplomatic corps. Young men of fashion were reported as throwing to her
bouquets containing diamonds; others sent horses and carriages to her
residence, with requests for her acceptance. One paper alluded
maliciously to the fact that a certain antiquated nobleman had given her
a New Year's present of _bon bons_, every 'sugared particle' being
folded in a five-pound Bank of England note. The paper added some rough
witticism, and informed the nobleman that his 'assiduities' would be
ineffectual, saying that 'the lady, with true Yankee shrewdness, accepts
all offerings at her shrine, but confers no favors in return.'

So the season wore away until the Spring had again come around. I saw an
announcement in a New York paper that Evelyn Afton (her maiden name),
who had recently acquired such a brilliant reputation in London, etc.,
would perform during a short engagement at the Park Theatre. The next
morning saw me on the route to New York. I placed myself in an obscure
corner of the theatre. The curtain rose. There was a brief absence of
all consciousness, and then she came upon the stage. The play was
Cymbeline. I know nothing of what transpired, save that when she
rendered the words,--

  'Oh for a horse with wings,'--

that light again appeared in her eyes.

The performance ended, and a man, feeling himself old and weary, passed
into the streets, and wandered through them till morning, wondering if
he had not in some way been connected with the brilliant being he had
seen; it seemed to him that once there had been some entwining of their
fates, but the recollection of it came like the indistinct memory of a
half-impressed dream,--as if it had been in some previous condition of
existence, and the consciousness of it had lingered through a subsequent
metempsychosis.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was sitting solitary in an apartment of the humble dwelling which I
occupied, poring in a slow, melancholy memory over my past life, and
questioning myself when Evelyn would fulfil the promise of again
informing me of her intentions. My mood was scarcely disturbed by a
knock at the outer door, which was responded to by the maid who had
charge of my children, and the next instant I was thrilled almost to
stupefaction by seeing Evelyn enter the room.

'I've come! I've come!' she cried, in wild eagerness. 'Have you not
expected me? I'm home--home once more. Dearest--lover--husband--I'm
here, never to leave you!'

I only gasped forth--'Evelyn!'

I knew not but it was an illusion.

Then she threw herself upon me, and covered me with kisses, uttered a
volume of passionate endearments, entwined her arms about me in all
tender embraces. I reasoned with myself that it was a dream, and would
not stir lest it should dissolve.

She stood above me, and again I saw that light in her eyes. Then for the
first time I understood its import. Oh! the strange, deep, glorious
light of love and resolute devotion.

I rose falteringly, and asked in feeble accents,--'Is it you, Evelyn?
Have you indeed come?'

'Yes, yes, your Evelyn at last,--come to your arms and your heart. Your
own Evelyn, so long unworthy of you. Will you receive me?'

I but threw my arms around her, and sank down with her on my breast.
Nature exhausted itself in the intensity of that embrace. Language was
denied to emotion. For some moments she lay like a child, nestling to my
heart, then suddenly started up and disappeared in the hall. Again I
thought it was a dream, and that it had fled. She reappeared, bearing a
small casket, which in a quick, frantic sort of way she thrust on the
table, opened and pulled out gold pieces, jewels and bank notes,
flinging them down, some on the table and some on the floor, exclaiming,
'See, you ruined yourself for me, and I have come to repay you. Look,
all these your Evelyn brings to testify to her love. The children!' she
exclaimed, as she threw out the last contents,--'where are they? Come,
show me.' She seized the lamp, and, grasping my arm, dragged me in my
half-bewildered state to the next apartment, where the infants lay
sleeping. She flung herself eagerly but tenderly upon them, and devoured
them with kisses. 'Now you will love them, for my sake,' she said; and,
for the first time since discovering that she loved me not, I bestowed
upon them a voluntary paternal caress--I bowed over them and gently
kissed their foreheads. Her love for them had restored them to my heart.

Then again, with her wild, impetuous manner, she led me back to the
other room. I sat upon the sofa and drew her to my breast. She lay
passive a moment, then started up and paced the floor, with rapid
utterances, broken with half sobs and half laughter. She returned to me,
and again repeated this, till finally interrupted with a violent fit of
coughing, occasioned, as I supposed, by excitement.

'Be calm, Evelyn,' I said. 'Come and lie in my arms. This joy is too
great for me to realize. I must feel you on my bosom to convince me that
I am not deceived.'

So she reposed in my arms, and--with broken sobs, the intervals of which
gradually increased, she finally slept. A lethargy also fell upon me,
which endured how long I know not. As I returned to wakefulness, I
shuddered with a cold thrill, such as one might feel on suddenly finding
himself in the presence of a spirit; for I heard what was of more
terrible meaning to me than any other sound. The rest of the precious
sleeper at my side was disturbed frequently by a short, husky cough,
followed by a low moan as of dull pain. Well I knew the prediction
conveyed by those sounds. Long watchings by the bedside of a
slowly-dying mother had made me fearfully familiar with them. Through
the lingering hours of that night I sat listening to them with an
agonized ear, and in my bitterness I almost cursed Heaven for providing
the doom I anticipated.

At the first glimpse of morning I bore her carefully to the side of the
sleeping children, and, after replacing in the casket its contents, sped
to the house of the physician whom I have previously mentioned, and,
leaving word for immediate attendance, hastened back, and resumed my
watch. Oh! in the dawn how pallid and sunken the features which I had so
often seen flushed and full with the animation of life and genius!
Evelyn woke and smiled peacefully on me, but lay as if still exhausted
with weariness. The physician came. He was already aware that my wife
had been engaged in her profession, though ignorant of the objects which
had induced her to it. I informed him of my apprehensions. Conducting
him to Evelyn, I excused his presence by stating my fear that she might
require his advice after her excitement and fatigue. With skillful
caution he observed her, and in conversation elicited the statement that
some months since she had been ill from exposure. She had recovered, she
said, and was entirely well, except that occasionally slight exertion
prostrated her. Even while she spoke the monitor was continually making
itself heard.

I drew him to the other apartment, and in a hoarse whisper said,--'Well,
your verdict;--but I know it already from your countenance.'

'If you were wealthy,' he replied--

'Wealthy! I am rich--rich,' I interrupted him. 'Look!' (with this I
opened the casket, and run my fingers through the glittering contents,
like a miser through his coin.) 'Tell me what wealth can do, and these
shall do it. To gain these she has imperiled life. Let them restore it
if they can.'

I saw suspicion on his countenance. 'It is false,' I exclaimed, 'false!
I tell you she is as pure as heaven. It was for me that she earned all
these.' And I dashed them on the floor and ground them under my feet.

He seized me and was weeping. 'You are mad,' he said. 'I believe you.
Now I understand all. Do not delay. Take her to Italy, and may Heaven
preserve her to you.'

In a week's time we were on our voyage, accompanied by the children and
the physician--the latter professing to Evelyn that he desired to make
the tour of Europe. My own apology for the voyage was a wish to complete
the tour previously interrupted.

The passage was long and tedious. Before reaching our destination my
hopes of Evelyn's recovery had vanished. Her demeanor was so gentle,
childlike and affectionate, my heart was wrung with anguish. I could not
break her sweet serenity by disclosing the fate which was impending. She
seemed to have reached a period of the most holy and perfect
satisfaction. All the suppressed bitterness of former years--all the
earnest resolution of the later time--had vanished, and she rested happy
in the enjoyment of our mutual love. This quiet assisted the process of
destruction. Had there been something to rouse her old energy, I am
confident she would have made a desperate, perhaps successful, struggle
for life. But I could not force myself to excite it by a warning against
the insidious destroyer.

On our arrival she was in a deplorable condition of weakness. She
imputed this debility to the voyage. Day by day I saw the flame of life
dwindling, but she was unsuspicious, and only wondered that her recovery
was so slow. Once, as she was watching, in a half-declining position,
the setting sun, and talking of the happy days to come, I could contain
myself no longer, but burst forth into a frenzy of sobbing.

'Evelyn,' I said, 'you are dying. You know it not, but, oh God, it is
true. You are dying before me, and I can not save you. Perhaps it is too
late for you to save yourself.'

At first she supposed that my emotion was only the undue result of
anxiety for her, but as I grew calmer, and told her more precisely my
meaning, and the causes of my fears, she said, with something of her old
firmness,--

'If this be true, let me become fully convinced. Call in Dr. ----, and
leave me alone with him. I have not thought of dying, but should have
known that my present happiness was too exquisite to last.'

I sent in the doctor, and he told her all. What passed between us, on my
return, is too sacred for relation. It is enough that the bitterness of
that hour filled all the capacity of the human heart for anguish and
despair. Afterwards we became more reconciled to the dispositions of
Heaven.

The history of her gradual decline need not be related--the hopes, the
suspense, the disappointments--the reviving indications of health, the
increasing symptoms of fatal disease--the flush and brilliancy as of
exuberant vitality--the fading of all the hues of life--all the
vicissitudes of the unrelenting progress of decay--one after another,
resolving themselves into the lineaments of death.

It was indeed too late.

Frank still remained in Florence, but had discarded the society of his
bachelor friends for that of the young lady previously mentioned, who
was now entitled to call him husband.

Soon after our arrival I called upon him, announced Evelyn's illness,
with its hopeless character. The young man was shocked. He had never
thought of disease or death in connection with Evelyn. Who could?
Besides, I could read in his face a horror mixed with thankfulness at
the escape, as his memory recalled the madness which would have urged to
guilt, her who was about to leave the scenes of earthly passion. I
invited him to return with me. He did so, and I left him alone with
Evelyn. I knew that his presence would now give her no shock.

What passed between them I never heard; but it was not beyond
conjecture. The method of his regard for her subsequently, fully
revealed it. It was the most lofty and refined feeling of which humanity
is capable--the worship of the artist--the friendship of the man.

Well,--the last scene arrived. We knew that the time had come. It was,
as she had hoped, at sunset. She gazed long at the changing splendors of
the western sky. 'Such,' she said, 'is death. Life merely revolves away
from us, but the soul still shines the same upon another sphere. The
faith that invests death with terror is a false one. We pass from one
world to another--drop one style of existence for a higher. We enter on
a life in which may be realized all which here we have vainly sought
for. The soul-longings shall all be there fulfilled. Come soon--all of
you. I shall be waiting you. There love and friendship--unsullied and
unruffled--without passion or misconception--will give perpetual
happiness.'

       *       *       *       *       *

And so she passed away. This is the tenth anniversary of her death. We
bore hither all that was left of her to us, and Frank's chisel has
marked her resting place. Her children are beside her, and I wait
impatiently the time when I may enter with them on that existence where
the budding affections of earth shall blossom into immortal enjoyment.

       *       *       *       *       *

As Mr. Bell ceased his narrative, I pressed his hand, and without words
departed.

About noon next day the rumor circulated through the streets that he was
dead. I hastened to his house, and learned that it was true. He had been
found at a late hour of the morning lying on his bed, dressed as I had
left him. Physicians made an examination of the corpse, and attributed
the cause to apoplexy. I did not lament him, for I knew his spirit was
in the embrace of the loved ones who went before him.

       *       *       *       *       *

SELF-RELIANCE.


  When the eaglets' tender wings are feathered
    The old eagles crowd them from the nest;
  Down they flutter till their plumes have gathered
    Strength to lift them to the granite crest
    Of the hills their eldest sires possessed.

  When the one cub of the lordly lions
    Strikes the earth and shakes his bristling mane,
  Forth they lash him, though he growl defiance,
    O'er the sand-waste to pursue his gain,--
    Shaggy Nimrod of the desert plain!

  Still the eagles watch out from the eyrie
    On the mountains, their young heirs to screen;
  The old lions on the hot sand-prairie,--
    If some peril track their cub,--unseen,
    Stealthier than the Bedouin, glide between.

  So the noblest of earth's creatures noble
    Are cast forth to find their way alone,
  So our manhood, in its day of trouble,
    Is but crowded from the sheltering zone
    And broad love-wings, to achieve its throne.

  We are left to battle, not forsaken,
    Watched in secret by our awful Sire;
  Left to conquer, lest our spirits weaken,
    And forget to wrestle and aspire,
     Finding all things prompter than desire.

  He hath hid the everlasting presence
    Of his Godhead from the world he made,
  Veiled his incommunicable essence
    In thick darkness of thick clouds arrayed,
    On our bold search flashing through the shade.

  We are gods in veritable seeming
    When we struggle for our vacant thrones,
  But are earthlings beyond God's redeeming
    While we lean, and creep, and beg in moans,
    And base kneeling cramps our knitted bones.

  Strength is given us, and a field for labor,
    Boundless vigor and a boundless field;
  Not to eat the harvests of our neighbor,
    But our own fate's reaping-hook to wield--
    Gathering only what our lands may yield;

  If perchance it may be wheat or darnel,
    Bitter herbs to medicine a wrong,
  Stinging thistles round a haunted charnel,
    Or rich wines to make us glad and strong,--
    Fitting fruits that to each mood belong.

  While such power and scope to us are given,
    Who shall bind us to the triumph-car
  Of some victor soul, before us driven,
    Earlier hero in the work and war,
    Him to mimic, humbly and afar?

  No! we will not stoop, and fawn and follow;
    There are victories for our hands to win,
  Rocks to rive, and stubborn glebes to mellow,
    Outward trials leagued to foes within;
    Earth and self to purify from sin.

  No! our spirits shall not cringe and grovel,
    Stooping lowly to a low thoughts door,
  As if Heaven were straitened to a hovel,
    All its star-worlds set to rise no more,
    And our genius had no wings to soar.

  Truths bequeathed us are for lures to action;
    Not for grave-stones fane and altar stand,
  Tempting men to wait the resurrection
    Of old prophets from their sunsets grand,--
    Rather mile-stones towards the Promised Land,

  Gird your mantles and bind on your sandals,
    Each man marching by his own birth-star;
  God will crown us when those glimmering candles
    Swell to suns as forth we track them far,--
    Suns that bear our throne and victory-bannered car!

       *       *       *       *       *

THE HUGUENOT FAMILIES IN AMERICA.


The celebrated 'Edict of Nantes' was, to speak accurately, a new
confirmation of former treaties between the French government and the
Protestants, or _Huguenots_--in fact, a royal act of indemnity for all
past offences. The verdicts against the '_Reformed_' were annulled and
erased from the rolls of the Superior Courts, and to them unlimited
liberty of conscience was recognized as a right. This important and
solemn Edict marked for France the close of the Middle Ages, and the
true commencement of modern times; it was sealed with the great seal of
green wax, to testify its irrevocable and perpetual character. In
signing this great document, Henry IV. completely triumphed over the
usages of the Middle Ages, and the illustrious monarch wished nothing
less than to grant to the 'Reformed' all the civil and religious rights
which had been refused them by their enemies. For the first time France
raised itself above religious parties. Still, a state policy so new
could not fail to excite the clamors of the more violent, and the hatred
of factions. The sovereign, however, remained firm. 'I have enacted the
Edict,' said Henry to the Parliament of Paris,--'I wish it to be
observed. My will must serve as the reason why. I am king. I speak to
you as king.--I will be obeyed.' To the clergy he said, 'My predecessors
have given you good words, but I, with my gray jacket,--I will give you
good deeds. I am all gray on the outside, but I'm all gold within.'
Praise to those noble sentiments, peace was maintained in the realm; the
honor of which alone belongs to Henry IV.

In the first half of the seventeenth century, there could be counted in
France more than eight hundred Reformed churches, with sixty-two
Conferences. Such was the prosperity and powerful organization of the
Protestant party until the fall of La Rochelle, which was emphatically
called the citadel of 'the Reform.' This misfortune terminated the
religious wars of France. The Huguenots, now excluded from the
employment of the civil service and the court, became the industrial
arms of the kingdom. They cultivated the fine lands of the Cevennes, the
vineyards of Guienne, the cloths of Caen. In their hands were almost
entirely the maritime trade of Normandy, with the silks and taffetas of
Lyons, and, from even the testimony of their enemies, they combined with
industry, frugality, integrity all those commercial virtues, which were
hallowed by earnest love of religion and a constant fear of God. The
vast plains which they owned in Bearn waved with bounteous harvests.
Languedoc, so long devastated by civil wars, was raised from ruin by
their untiring industry. In the diocese of Nimes was the valley of
Vannage, renowned for its rich vegetation. Here the Huguenots had more
than sixty churches or 'temples,' and they called this region '_Little
Canaan_.' Esperon, a lofty summit of the Cevennes, filled with sparkling
springs and delicious wild flowers, was known as '_Hort-dieu_' the
garden of the Lord.

The Protestant party in France did not confine themselves to
manufactures and commerce, but entered largely into the liberal
pursuits. Many of the 'Reformed' distinguished themselves as physicians,
advocates and writers, contributing largely to the literary glory of the
age of Louis XIV. In all the principal cities of the kingdom, the
Huguenots maintained colleges, the most flourishing of which were those
at Orange, Caen, Bergeracs and Nimes, etc. etc. To the Huguenot
gentlemen, in the reign of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., France was
indebted for her most brilliant victories. Marshal Rantzan, brave and
devoted, received no less than sixty wounds, lost an arm, a leg, and an
eye, his heart alone remaining untouched, amidst his many battles. Need
we add the names of Turenne, one of the greatest tacticians of his day,
with Schomberg, who, in the language of Madame de Sevigne, 'was a hero
also,' or glorious Duquesne, the conqueror of De Ruyter? He beat the
Spaniards and English by sea, bombarded Genoa and Algiers, spreading
terror among the bold corsairs of the Barbary States; the Moslemin
termed him 'The old French captain who had wedded the sea, and whom the
angel of death had forgotten.' All these were illustrious leaders, with
crowds of distinguished officers, and belonged to the Reformed religion.
Wonderful and strange to relate, in the midst of all this national
happiness and prosperity, the kingdom of France was again to appear
before the world as the persecutor of her best citizens, the destroyer
of her own vital interests. The Edict of Nantes was revoked on 22d
October, 1685. It is not our purpose to name the causes of this suicidal
policy, as they are indelibly written on the pages of our world's
history, nor shall we point to the well-known provisions of this insane
and bloody act. In a word, Protestant worship was abolished throughout
France, under the penalty of arrest, with the confiscation of goods.
Huguenot ministers were to quit the kingdom in a fortnight. Protestant
schools were closed, and the laity were forbidden to follow their
clergy, under severe and fatal penalties. All the strict laws concerning
heretics were again renewed. But, in spite of all these enactments,
dangers and opposition, the Huguenots began to leave France by
thousands.

Many entreated the court, but in vain, for permission to withdraw
themselves from France. This favor was only granted to the Marshal de
Schomberg and the Marquis de Ruoigny, on condition of their retiring to
Portugal and England. Admiral Duquesne, then aged eighty, was strongly
urged by the king to change his religion. 'During sixty years,' said the
old hero, showing his gray hairs,' I have rendered unto Cæsar the things
which I owe to Cæsar; permit me now, sire, to render unto God the thing
which I owe to God.' He was permitted to end his days in his native
land. The provisions of the Edict were carried out with inflexible
rigor. In the month of June, 1686, more than six hundred of the Reformed
could be counted in the galleys at Marseilles, and nearly as many in
those of Toulon, and the most of them condemned by the decision of a
single marshal (de Mortieval). Fortunately for the refugees, the guards
along the coast did not at all times faithfully execute the royal
orders, but often aided the escape of the fugitives. Nor were the, land
frontiers more faithfully guarded. In our day, it is impossible to state
the correct numbers of the Protestant emigration. Assuming that one
hundred thousand Protestants were distributed among twenty millions of
Roman Catholics, we think it safe to calculate that from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred thousand, during fifteen years, expatriated
themselves from France. Sismondi estimates their number at three or four
hundred thousand. Reaching London, Amsterdam or Berlin, the refugees
were received with open purses and arms, and England, America, Germany,
Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Holland, all profited
by this wholesale proscription of Frenchmen. All agree that these
Protestant emigrants were among the bravest, the most industrious, loyal
and pious in the kingdom of France, and that they carried with them the
arts by which they had enriched their own land, and abundantly repaid
the hospitality of those countries which afforded them that asylum
denied them in their own.

The influence which the Huguenot refugees especially exerted upon trade
and manufactures in those countries where they settled, was very
striking and lasting. England and Holland, of all other nations, owe
gratitude to the Protestants of France for the various branches of
industry introduced by them, and which have greatly contributed in
making their 'merchants princes,' and, their 'traffickers the honorable
of the earth.' We refer to these nations particularly, because they are
so intimately connected with the colonization of our own favored land.
The Huguenot refugees in England introduced the silk factories in
Spitalfields, using looms like those of Lyons and of Tours. They also
commenced the manufacture of fine linen, calicoes, sail-cloth,
tapestries, and paper, most of which had before been imported from
France. It has been estimated that these refugees thus brought into
Great Britain a trade which deprived France of an annual income of
nearly ten millions of dollars. Science, arms, jurisprudence and
literature, were also advanced by their arrival. The _first_ newspaper
in Ireland was published by the Pastor Droz, a refugee, who also founded
a library in Dublin. Thelluson (Lord Redlesham), a brave soldier in the
Peninsular war, General Ligonier, General Prevost of the British army,
Sir Samuel Romilly, Majendie, Bishop of Chester, Henry Layard, the
excavator of Nineveh, all are the descendants of the French Huguenots.
Saurin secured the reputation of his powerful eloquence at the Hague;
but in the French Church, Threadneedle street, London, he reached the
summit of his splendid pulpit eloquence. Most of the Huguenots who fled
to England for an asylum were natives of Normandy, Brittany, Picardy,
and Guienne. Their numbers at the revocation may be calculated at eighty
thousand. Hume estimates them at fifty thousand, another writer at
seventy thousand, but we believe these calculations are too low. In
1676, the communicants of the Protestant French Church at Canterbury
reached not less than twenty-five hundred. Of all the services of the
Huguenots to England, none was more important than the energetic support
to the Prince of Orange against James II. The Prince employed no less
than seven hundred and thirty-six French officers, brave men who had
been learned to conquer under the banner of Turenne and Condi. Schomberg
was the hero at the battle of Boyne. One of his standards bore a BIBLE,
supported on three swords, with the motto--'_Ie maintiendray_.' The
gallant old man, now eighty-two years of age, fell mortally wounded, but
triumphing, and with his dying eyes he saw the soldiers of James
vanquished, and dispersed in headlong flight. Ruoigny, in the same
battle, received a mortal wound, and, covered with blood, before the
advancing French refugee regiments, cheered them on, crying, 'Onward, my
lads, to glory! onward to glory!'

In England, the French Protestants long remained as a distinct people,
preserving in a good degree a nationality of their own, but in the lapse
of years this disappeared. One hardly knows in our day where to find a
genuine Saxon,--'pure English undefiled,'--for the Huguenot blood
circulates beneath many a well-known patronymic. Who would imagine that
anything French could be traced in the colorless names of White and
Black, or the authoritative ones of King and Masters? Still it is a
well-known fact that such names, at the close of the last century,
delighted in the designations of Leblanck (White), Lenoir (Black),
Loiseau (Bird), Lejeune (Young), Le Tonnellier (Cooper), Lemaitre
(Master), Leroy (King). These names were thus translated into good
strong Saxon, the owners becoming one with the English in feeling,
language, and religion. Holland, too, glorious Protestant Holland! the
fatherland of American myriads, welcomed the fugitive Huguenots. From
the beginning of the Middle Ages that noble land had been a hospitable
home for the persecuted from all parts of Europe. During the last twenty
years of the seventeenth century, the French emigration into that
country became a political event. Amsterdam granted to all citizenship,
with freemen's privilege of trade, and exemption of taxes for three
years; and all the other towns of that nation rivalled each other in the
same liberal and Christian spirit. In the single year of the revocation,
more than two hundred and fifty Huguenot preachers reached the free soil
of the United Provinces. Pensions were allowed to them, the married
receiving four hundred florins, those in celibacy two hundred. The
Prince of Orange attached two French preachers to his person, with many
French officers to his army against James II.--thanks to the generous
Princess of Orange, who selected several Huguenot dames as ladies of
honor. One house at Harlaem was exclusively reserved for young ladies of
noble birth. At the Hague, an ancient convent of preaching monks was
changed into an asylum for the persecuted ladies. Of all lands which
received the refugees, none witnessed such crowds as the Republic of
Holland; and hence Boyle called it '_the grand arch of the refugees_.'
No documents exactly compute their number; one author calculates it at
fifty-five thousand, and another, in 1686, at nearly seventy-five
thousand souls. In the Dutch Republic and Germany, as was the result in
England, the Huguenots exercised a most powerful influence on politics,
literature, war, and religion, and industry and commerce. Holland,
contrary to the general expectation, outlived the invasion of 1672, the
Prince of Orange fortunately checking the designs of Louis XIV. Refugee
soldiers had powerfully contributed to the triumph of his cause in
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and then they followed him, with valor,
in the war against Louis XIV., which compelled that monarch to sue for
peace.

Literary men and preachers obtained repose and liberty in that land,
with consideration and honor. Amsterdam alone received sixteen banished
refugee ministers; and more than two hundred spread themselves through
all the towns of the United Provinces. Very eloquent French pastors
filled the pulpits of the Hague, Rotterdam, Leyden, and Harlaem. Their
most brilliant orator was James Saurin. Abbaddié, hearing him for the
first time, exclaimed, 'Is this a man or an angel, who is speaking to
us?' Let us dwell a moment upon the character of this wonderful man. By
the elevation of his thoughts and brilliancy of imagination, his
luminous expositions, purity of style, with vigor of expression, he
produced the most profound impression on the refugees and others who
crowded to hear his varied eloquence. What charmed them most was the
union in his style of Genevese zeal and earnestness with southern ardor,
and especially those solemn prayers, with which he loved to close his
discourses. Saurin displayed in these petitions strains of supplication
which up to this time among the Hollanders had never been observed in
any other preacher.

All the branches of human learning were advanced in Holland by the
Protestant Frenchmen. Here no fetters on genius, no secret censorship or
persecution, existed. The boldest democratic theories, with the most
daring philosophic systems, were freely discussed, and the refugees
promoted this spirit of investigation. They also increased the commerce
and manufactures and agriculture of the Netherlands, and rendered
Amsterdam one of the most famous cities of the world. Like the ancient
city of Tyre, which the prophet named the 'perfection of beauty,' her
merchant princes traded with all islands and nations. Macpherson, in his
Annals of Commerce, estimates the annual loss to France, caused by the
refugees establishing themselves in England and Holland, was not less
than 3,582,000 pounds sterling, or about ninety millions of francs.
Until the close of the eighteenth century, the descendants of the
Huguenots in Holland were united among themselves, by intermarriage and
the bonds of mutual sympathies. But in time a fusion with the Dutch
became inevitable. Then, in Holland, as was the case with England and
Germany, many refugees, abjuring their nationality, changed their French
names into Dutch. The Leblancs called themselves De Witt,--the
Deschamps, Van de Velde,--the Dubois, Van den Bosch,--the Chevaliers,
Ruyter,--the Legrands, De Groot, etc. etc. With the change of names,
Huguenot churches began to disappear, so that out of sixty-two which
could be counted among the seven provinces in 1688, eleven only now
remain,--among them those at Hague, Amsterdam, Leyden, Utrecht,
Rotterdam, and Groningen. These are the last monuments of the Huguenot
emigration to Holland, and a certain number of families preserve some
sentiment of nationality, who consider themselves honored by their
French, noble, Protestant origin, while at the same time they are united
by patriotic affection to their newly adopted country.

This rapid chapter of the expulsion of the 'Huguenots,' or
'Protestants,' or 'Refugees,' from their native land, with their
settlement in England and Holland, seem necessary for a better
understanding of our subject. Thence, they emigrated to America, and it
is our object to collect something concerning their origin and
descendants among us. The Huguenots of America is a volume which still
remains fully and correctly to be written. This is a period when
increased attention and study are directed to historical subjects, and
we gladly will contribute what mite we may possess to the important
object.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE BLACK WITCH.


'A witch,' according to my nurse's account, 'must be a haggard old
woman, living in a little rotten cottage under a hill by a wood-side,
and must be frequently spinning by the door; she must have a black cat,
two or three broom-sticks, and must be herself of so dry a nature, that
if you fling her into a river she will not sink: so hard then is her
fate, that, if she is to undergo the trial, if she does not drown she
must be burnt, as many have been within the memory of man.'


ROUND ABOUT OUR COAL FIRE.

In a bustling New England village there lived, not many years ago, a
poor, infirm, deformed little old woman, who was known to the
middle-aged people living there and thereabout as 'Aunt Hannah.' The
younger members of the little community had added another and very
odious title to the 'Aunt'--they called her 'Aunt Hannah, the Black
Witch.' Not that she was of negro blood. Her pale, pinched and patient
face was white as the face of a corpse; so, also, was her thin hair,
combed smoothly down under the plain cap she always wore. Very white
indeed she was, as to face, and hair, and cap, but otherwise she was all
and always black, especially so as regarded an ugly pair of gloves,
which were never removed from her hands, so far as the youngsters were
aware, and which added to the fearfully mysterious aspect of those
members. Exactly what they covered, the children never knew, but they
saw that one hideous glove enclosed something like a gigantic, withered
bird's claw, while within the other there musts have been a repulsive
and horrid knob, without proper form, and lacking any remotest attempt
at thumb and fingers.

These shapeless members, forever covered from the world, wrought fearful
images in the minds of the children, and their youthful imaginations
conjured up all sorts of uses to which such strange members might be
applied. Upon one point they were agreed. There was no doubt in any
little head among them that Aunt Hannah had at some time sold herself to
Satan, and that he had placed this deformity upon her as a mark of
ownership. Then she had a humped back, poor woman, the result of the
cruel weight of many weary years; and she leaned upon an old-fashioned
staff with a curved and crutch-like handle; and her bleared eyes were
bent forever on the ground; and her thin lips twitched convulsively, and
she muttered to herself as she crawled about the village streets; and
it was said by those who knew, that she was nearly a hundred years of
age. So the youngsters called her the 'Black Witch,' and sometimes
hooted after her in the streets, or hobbled on before her with bowed
heads and ridiculous affectation of infirmity. Thanks to her evil name,
none of them ever ventured to actually assault the poor old creature,
and their taunts she bore with patient meekness, going ever quietly upon
her accustomed, peaceful way.

The older villagers regarded her with a pity that was half pity and half
disgust. Those fearful hands they never could forget, nor the bowed
figure, nor the strange working of the lips. Therefore, they held her in
a sort of dreading, but still her lonely life, and her patient,
uncomplaining spirit, moved their hearts. Then a vague
tradition--nothing more, for neither kith nor kin had ancient Hannah--a
vague tradition said that she had once been very beautiful; that when
she was in her fresh and lovely youth, some strange misfortune had
fallen upon her, and that she had worn since then--most innocently--the
mark of a direful tragedy. One lady, old, nearly, as Aunt Hannah, but
upon whom there had never fallen any blight of poverty or wrong, loved
the poor creature well, and she only, of all the inhabitants of the
village, frequently entered the cottage where the 'Black Witch' dwelt.
This lady, it was said, had known her when both were young, and carried
forever locked in her heart the story of that saddened youth. None
called good Mrs. Marjoram a witch. _Her_ face was clear, her smile
bright, her eyes sparkling, and she bore her years with an upright and
cheerful carriage.

The little, one-storied house where Aunt Hannah dwelt was situated in a
hollow just out of the village, in the shadow of a grove of tangled
hemlocks and pines. It consisted of two rooms only, with an unfinished
attic overhead; and before her door the poor old soul might be seen any
pleasant day, sitting meekly in the sun. She could neither knit nor sew
as other old women do, but she sat there waiting patiently for the time
when her kind Father should call her home, to lose forever the blackness
that clung to her in this weary world.

She did not live here entirely alone, for, true to the universal
reputation of witches, she kept, not one cat only, but several; all
black cats, too. It was the only fancy she indulged in, the only luxury
she allowed herself, and it was sad that this harmless freak should cost
her so many taunts. Sometimes the boys tried to kill her cats, aided in
the murderous attempt by the village dogs, but no dog ever came back
scatheless from those sharp and spiteful claws. Hence the boys were
certain as to the witchcraft, and 'knew' that these savage animals were
true imps of Satan.

This weak and defenceless creature, living thus apart from human
companionship, was supported on a small annuity, paid her quarterly by a
very honest company, that would have been ruined with many such
venerable clients. On pleasant days she crept about the town to do her
meagre marketing, or crawled to the paupers' pew in the old brick
meeting-house. During the warm summer weather her scant life was
somewhat cheered, and a faint attempt at joyousness sometimes winked in
her old eyes, but with the winter's cold came the cruel cramps and
rheumatism, the sleepless nights and painful days. Then Mrs. Marjoram
frequently drove to her door, carrying medicines and nourishing
food,--over and above all, bringing cheerful words and a warm and hearty
smile.

One winter Mrs. Marjoram was taken ill, and, being so very old, her life
was despaired of. During this sickness there came a great fall of snow,
piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into
the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that
part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but
for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there
was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's
consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to
another that Aunt Hannah must be buried alive!

Buried _alive?_ The men, suddenly summoned from their business or their
leisure, hardly thought _that_ possible in the deep hollow, filled
nearly to the level with heavily packed and frozen snow.

Men walked out on the firm crust till they were directly over the spot
where, full twenty feet below, stood Aunt Hannah's little house. And
they shook their heads mournfully at the sickening thought of what must
lie below them.

It was a good day's work for twenty men to open a gradually descending
way to the lonely house,--a good day's work; so that when they reached
the door--finding it locked inside--they sent back to the village for
lanterns and candles before bursting it in.

The sight that startled and horrified them after they had forced the
door, they never liked to speak of. The sounds from the furious,
spitting and snarling cats they never forgot.

Her disfigured and mutilated remains were decently interred, and when
the spring-time carried away the snow, they leveled the house with the
ground. But, though they buried her out of their sight and pulled down
the rotten cottage she had inhabited for so many weary years, the
fearful memory of her evil name and dreadful end remained, and nearly
all the village came to regard her as, in very truth, a witch.

Only Mrs. Marjoram took from the cottage with pious love an ancient and
much-thumbed book, on whose fly-leaf was written 'Jason Fletcher, His
Bible.' Then, having no longer any reason to conceal the early history
of the deceased, she related to the village gossips--as a warning
against trusting too fully to evil appearances--the following


STORY OF POOR HANNAH LEE.

A long time ago--before the middle of the last century, in fact--there
dwelt in one of the most flourishing towns in Western Massachusetts a
family of Puritan extraction named Fletcher. Straitest among the strict,
John Cotton Fletcher and his wife Mehitabel held all lightness of
conduct or gamesomeness of speech as sin most devoutly to be prayed and
striven against, and not only 'kept' the ten commandments with pious
zeal, but, for the better serving of the Lord, invented an eleventh,
which read 'Laugh not at all.' _Holy days_ they knew, in number during
the year fifty-four, namely, the fifty-two 'Sabbaths' and the governor's
Fast and Thanksgiving days; _holidays_ they held in utter abhorrence,
deeming Christmas, especially, an invention of the devil. On 'work-days'
they worked; on 'Sabbath-days' they attended the preaching of the word;
otherwise, on the Lord's day, doing nothing save to eat and drink what
was absolutely necessary to keep them from faintness. They lived to
praise the Lord, and they must eat to live. But no cooking or other
labor was done on that day, and if the old horse was saddled to carry
them to meeting it was because that was a work of necessity. On Fast and
Thanksgiving days--because they were peculiarly of Puritan origin--there
was an especial effort at godliness, and woe, then, to any profaning
youngster who dared to shout or play within sound or sight of Deacon
Fletcher's premises. Every Saturday night, at sunset, all tools for men
and playthings for children were put away, to be disturbed no more till
sunset on Sunday. All papers, books, knitting-work, sewing, were
disposed of 'out of the way.' It was necessary to milk the cows, feed
the pigs, and saddle the horse, but that was all the work that was
allowed. As to any jest on any holy day, that was, beyond all other
things, most abhorrent to their ideas of Christian duty. Life with them
was a continued strife against sin, cheered only by the hope of casting
off all earthly trammels at last, to enter upon one long, never-ending
Sabbath. And their Sabbath of idleness was more dreary than their
'week-day' of work.

Yet were they an humble, honest, and upright pair, walking purely before
God according to the light they had, and as highly respected and honored
in the community, that the fiat of the minister himself--and in those
days the minister's word was 'law and gospel' in the smaller New England
villages--was hardly more potent than that of Deacon Fletcher.

To this couple was born one son, and one only. Much as they mourned when
they saw their neighbors adding almost yearly to their groups of olive
branches, the Lord in his wisdom vouchsafed to them only this one child,
and they bowed meekly to the providence and tried to be content. Why his
father named the boy 'Jason,' no one could rightly tell; perhaps because
the fleece of his flocks had been truly fleece of gold to him; at all
events, thus was the child named, and in the strict rule of this
Christian couple was Jason reared.

It would be sad as well as useless to tell of the dreary winter-Sundays
in the cold meeting-house (it was thought a wicked weakness to have a
fire in a church then) through which he shivered and froze; of the
fearful sitting in the corner after the two-hours sermons and the
thirty-minutes prayers were done; of the utter absence of all cheerful
themes or thoughts on the holy days which they so straitly remembered to
keep; of the visions of sudden death, and the bottomless pit thereafter,
which haunted the child through long nights; of the sighing for green
fields and the singing of birds, on some summer Sundays, when the sun
was warm and the sky was fair; and the clapping of the old-fashioned
wooden seats, as the congregation rose to pray or praise, was sweeter
music than the blacksmith made who 'led the singing' through his nose.
It would be a dreary task to follow the boy through all this youthful
misery, and so I will let it pass. Doubtless all these things brought
forth their fruits when his day of freedom came. He was a large-framed,
full-blooded boy, with more than the usual allowance of animal spirits.
But his father was larger framed and tougher, and in his occasional
contests with his son victory naturally perched upon his banners, so
that the boy's spirit (which rebelled alway against the iron rule of the
household), if not broken down, was certainly so far kept under that it
rarely showed itself. It was a slumbering volcano, ready, when it
reached its strength, to pour out burning lava of passion and
evil-doing.

Thus the boy grew up almost to manhood, with very few rays of sunshine
cast over his early path to look back upon when he should Teach the
middle eminence of life. And the gloom of the present cheerless and
austere way caused him to look forward with the more rapture to that
time, when, with his twenty-first birth-day, should come the power to do
as he pleased with himself: with his hours of labor and of ease, with
his Sabbath-days and his work-days.

A little before the time when big majority was to come and set him
partially free--for then, according to the good old Puritan custom, he
would have his 'freedom-suit,' and probably a few hundred dollars and a
horse, and might remain with his father or go elsewhere--there fell
across Jason's path a sweet gleam of golden sunshine, such as he had
never known before, nor ever dreamed of. When he was in his twenty-first
year, his father, the Deacon,--being urged thereto by the failing health
of his overtasked wife,--adopted as half daughter, half serving maid, a
beautiful and friendless girl, who might otherwise have gone to ruin.
Her name was plain Hannah Lee. No name can be imagined too liquid, sweet
and voluptuous in its sound to typify her loveliness. It was not
strange, therefore, that she had not been long in the house before Jason
Fletcher, hitherto deprived of much cheerful female society, felt
stealing over him a new and strange excitement of mingled joy and
wonder. It is trite and tame to say that for him there came new flowers
in all the fields and by all the road-sides, and a hitherto unknown
fragrance in the balmy air; rosier colors to the sunset, softer tints to
the yellow gray east at dawn, brighter sparkle to the brooks, breezier
glories to the mountain-tops; but, doubtless, this was strictly true, as
it has been many times before and since to many other men, but scarce
ever accompanied by so great and complete a change.

His father might have expected it, and his mother have reckoned upon it,
but no thought of love in connection with their quiet and awkward son
ever entered into their minds, and so they put this sweet creature into
the youth's way, not reflecting that only one result--on his side, at
least--could follow.

They kept no watch upon the pair, and knew not of the many meetings,
accidental, apparently, even to themselves, that took place between the
innocent youth and girl. It needs no reading of light books to make a
successful lover, nor grace, nor elegant carriage; and Nature points the
way to the most modest and untrained wooer. So, without a word having
been spoken on the subject, nor any caress exchanged, except, perhaps,
an occasional momentarily clasped hand, or the necessary and proper
contact, when Hannah rode, sometimes, behind Jason on the pillion (one
arm around him to keep her in her seat), they became lovers, and none
the less so that they had given no verbal or labial utterance to their
loves.

And the summer flew by on wings of the fleetest, and Jason's
twenty-first birth-day approached.

It fell this year upon a Sunday. The family had 'been to meeting' all
the day as usual, no reference being made to the fact that the youth was
now 'free.' (His father had said to him, as they milked the cows on
Saturday night, 'We will put by your "Freedom Day" till Monday.') But
all day Jason had walked, and thought, and eaten, and drunk, not to the
glory of the Lord, as his father and mother piously believed _they_ did,
but to the glory of himself--no longer a child, but a man!

It lacked a full half hour to sunset, and there was no cooler resting
place that warm summer afternoon than beneath the shade of a
thick-leaved grape-vine that overspread a stunted pear tree some little
distance in the rear of the house. Hannah, with her natural love for
pleasant things and places, had induced Jason, some time before, to make
a seat for her in this charming spot. It was quite out of sight from the
house, and the little bower the vine made could be entered only from one
side. In this bower Hannah sat this sunny afternoon, wondering if it
would change Jason very much to be a boy no longer, and devoutly praying
in the depths of her pure little heart that it would not.

She sat, half sadly, and not very distinctly, dreaming over this
problem, when the shade was deepened, and, looking up, she was aware
that Jason stood at the entrance to the arbor. Her heart stopped beating
for half a moment, and she felt quite faint and sick. Then she said,
with a smile, half sad, half jocose, 'You are a _man_ now, Jason, are
you not?'

There was room for two on the seat, and she moved a little toward the
further end as she spoke.

'I am a man to-day, Hannah,' he said. 'Father wants to keep me boy till
to-morrow, because this is the Lord's day, and I suppose it is wicked to
be a man on Sunday. To-morrow I shall go away from here, and not come
back for a long, long time.' His voice trembled, and sounded very cold
and sad.

Hannah put her two elbows on her knees, rested her face in her hands,
and uttered a little, low, wailing cry, most painful to hear.

Then Jason seated himself beside her, put his arms about her, and,
raising her gently up, kissed her on the cheek. He had never before
kissed any woman save his mother.

'When I come back,' he said, 'I will marry you, if you love me, and then
we will always live together.'

The little maid dried her eyes, and a look sweet and calm, such as,
perhaps, the angels wear, stole over her innocent face.

'Oh, do you love me so? Will you?' she said.

'So help me God, I will,' he said.

Then she put her arms about his neck, and lifting up her innocent face
to his, gave him her heart in one long kiss.

(Just then a light foot, passing toward the house from a neighbor's,
paused at the arbor door, all unknown to those within, and little Martha
Hopkins, the neighbor's daughter and Hannah's special pet, looked in
upon them for a moment. Then she sped quickly to Deacon Fletcher's
house, and burst, all excitement, into the kitchen.)

'Will you wait for me, Hannah, darling,' said Jason, 'all the time it
may take me to get ready for a wife, and never love any other man, nor
let any other man love you? Never forget me, for years and years,
perhaps, till I come back for you? Will you always remember that we love
each other, and that you are to be my wife?'

'I will wait for you, dear, if I wait till I die,' she answered.

He folded her yet more closely to his breast.

While they held each other thus, forgetting all else in the world, his
father burst, furious and terrible, into the arbor!

He seized them with a strong and cruel rasp, and tore them pitilessly
asunder.

'Go into the house, boy,' he cried, 'and leave this'--

'Stop!' shouted Jason, springing to his feet, his face as white as death
and his eyes flashing--'Stop! Do not call her any name but a good name!
I would not bear it if you were twenty times my father!'

The old man stood transfixed.

'She is as good as you or as my mother, and will go to heaven as well as
you when she dies,' he continued passionately; 'as well as any of us; as
well as the minister! What did you come here for? Haven't you driven my
life almost to death ever since I can remember; and isn't that enough,
but you must come here and kill my darling, my dear, my love?'

He knelt where she lay on the ground.

'Hear the boy,' cried the father, in a rage equally terrible and far
less noble. 'Hear the boy go on about the baggage!'

The boy still knelt, unheeding anything save the senseless form beside
him.

'Wasn't it enough that you should wanton with a young woman in this
style, but you must do it on the holy Sabbath day?' the old man
continued. 'Mother,' he cried, jerking the words over his shoulder at
his wife, who stood behind him, 'do you bring such profligates as this
into the world, to disgrace a pious man's fame and bring his house to
sorrow? Let him go forth--my oldest and youngest born, and eat husks
with the swine; he shall have no portion, and there shall be no fatted
calf killed when he returns!'

Still the youth knelt, and now his head had fallen upon the prostrate
body, and he was covering her cold hand with kisses.

'Look here, young man,' the father cried, 'leave go that girl's hand and
come into the house; as true as there's a God in Israel I'll teach you
what a stout rawhide is made of!'

Just at this juncture neighbor Hopkins and his wife, warned by
quick-flying little Martha that something terrible was going on at
Deacon Fletcher's, appeared, hurrying towards the spot.

Peter Hopkins was considered a somewhat ungodly but a very just man, and
while the Deacon most highly disapproved of his spiritual state, and
doubted that he and 'vital piety' were strangers, he still respected
Peter's rugged honesty and directness of purpose, and ranked him
foremost among the 'world's people.' He was a man of powerful frame and
strong impulses, and when his feelings were aroused he stood in awe of
no man, high or low. When he forced his way into the arbor, therefore,
the Deacon paused in his invective and made no remonstrance.

Peter Hopkins at once put the worst construction on the scene before
him. He saw in the son of Deacon Fletcher only a seducer, in poor Hannah
Lee only a victim, and his blood rose to boiling heat. Without pausing
to ask any question, grasping at one guess, as he supposed, the whole
sad history, he seized Jason by the collar, and, lifting him up, dashed
him violently down again, the boy's head striking a corner of the bench
as he fell.

Then he took the girl tenderly up and faced about upon the father,
actually foaming with wrath.

'This comes of psalm singing,' he cried. 'Clear the way there!' and he
bore the still unconscious maiden toward his own house.

Then a sudden and strange revulsion came over Deacon Fletcher. For the
first time, perhaps, in twenty-one years, the father's heart triumphed
over the Deacon's prejudices. As he saw his son--his only son--lying
pale and bleeding on the ground, all recollection of his offense, all
thought of sinfulness or godliness in connection with his conduct,
vanished, and he only considered whether this pride of his, this strong
and beautiful son, were to die there, or to live and bless him. He
stooped, sobbing, over the boy, reconciled, at last, to humanity, and
conscious of a strong human love.

Not more tenderly was poor Hannah Lee borne to the house of Peter
Hopkins than the father carried the son he had only just received into
his own dwelling. There were no thoughts of husks now, but only a
sorrowful joy that one so long dead to him was at length alive, that a
new heart, full of human instincts, had found birth within his bosom.
But mingled with this joy was the fear that he had only, at length,
possessed his son to lose him.

While Jason Fletcher lay tossing, week after week, through the fever
that followed the scene of violence in the arbor, poor Hannah went sadly
but patiently about the light duties that farmer Hopkins and his wife
allowed her to perform.

Thoroughly convinced, through his wife's communications with Hannah, of
the innocence of the pair, Peter Hopkins had gone to Deacon Fletcher and
remonstrated with him on his outrageous conduct.

'Your son is a fine lad,' he said, 'and Hannah is fit to be queen
anywhere; and if you don't give her a fitting out when he's well enough
to marry her, hang me if _I_ won't! I owe the boy something for the ill
trick I played him in my hot-headedness, and he shall have it, too! Say,
now, that they shall be man and wife!'

Deacon Fletcher astonished the hot-hearted man beyond measure by quietly
telling him that, God willing, his dear son should marry Hannah as soon
as the visitation that now kept him on a bed of raving illness was taken
away. He added meekly that he hoped God would forgive him if he had
abused the trust placed in him, and, misled by a vanity of holiness, had
done his son great wrong, these many years.

'Give us your hand, Deacon,' cried the delighted pleader; 'you are a
good man, if you _are_ a Deacon, and that's more'n I'd have said a week
ago! You _have_ hurt that boy, and no mistake! You've either beaten the
spirit all out of him, or you have shut up a devil in him that'll break
out one o' these days, worse'n them that went into the pigs that we read
about! But 'tain't too late to mend, an' if a stitch in time _does_ save
nine, it's better to take the _nine_ stitches than to wait till they are
ninety times nine. You've got to be a thousand times kinder to the boy
than you would if you hadn't been so hard on him all his life.'

It was agreed that while the fever held its course nothing should be
said to poor Hannah, and so the two men parted--warm friends for the
first time in their lives.

And poor Hannah Lee went droopingly and patiently about her duties,
asking quietly from day to day as to the health of Jason, and telling no
soul how her heart seemed breaking within her, and how all the future
looked to her like a dreary waste.

Mrs. Hopkins threw out gentle hints that the Deacon might relent, and
that if he did the wish that was ever in Hannah's heart might be
realized. But the poor child paid little heed to her suggestions, a
foreshadowing of some direful calamity constantly enfolding and
saddening her. Still she kept bravely and quietly about her duties, and
it was only when she was alone in her chamber at night that she gave way
to the terrible wofulness that oppressed her, and prayed, and wept, and
wrestled with her sorrow.

And this sweet and lovely creature was the same pious and patient soul
who was afterwards taunted by rude village boys, and pointed at as one
who had sold herself to Satan.

One night she had cried herself asleep, and lay in an unquiet and fitful
slumber. As she thought of him alway by day, so now in her dreams the
image of Jason Fletcher was fantastically and singularly busy. It seemed
to her that she stood upon an eminence overlooking a peaceful valley of
that charming sort only to be seen in dreams. Afar off, and still, in
some strange way, very near, she beheld the youth of her love, who
reclined upon a bank beside a quiet stream. Everything was at rest. The
soft moonbeams--for, in her dream, evening rested on the valley--bathed
all the prospect in a cool effulgence. There was no sound, save only
that sweet music of never-sleeping nature which is forever heard within
all her broad domain. Still the dreamer felt that there was something
direful and most to be dreaded that threatened to invade and mar the
heavenly peacefulness. She felt it coming, and fearfully awaited its
approach. And she had not long to wait. For presently there appeared,
flying between the calm moonlight and the figure, and casting a doleful
shadow over his form, a scaly and dreadful dragon, like those we read of
that devastated whole countries in the old, old times. This hideous
beast breathed fire and smoke from its horrid nostrils as it flew, and
it flapped its fearful way downwards to scorch and destroy the figure
recumbent by the stream.

Just when it was stooping upon its unconscious victim, a heavy scale,
beaten from its side by the bat-like wings, fell upon the night-mare
stricken sleeper's breast, and she awoke.

The moon was shining peacefully into the room, and she found upon the
bed a black cat that had leaped in through the low window. It was a
gentle and loving animal, that had made friends with her upon her first
arrival, and it had already coiled itself up on the bed with a gentle
purring.

Everything was most quiet and calm as she lay gazing out through the
window; still the dreadful memory of her dream weighed upon and
oppressed her. She arose and leaned out into the cool night air. So
leaning, she could see Deacon Fletcher's house, standing bare and brown
in the moonlight only a few rods distant. She could gaze, with what
pleasure or sorrow she might, at the windows of the room where poor
Jason lay tossing with the fever.

She gazes earnestly thitherward, and her breath comes thick and short,
while her heart seems rising into her throat. For she sees, gathered
thick and dun above the house, a dense, undulating and ever-increasing
shadow, that threatens to obscure the low-floating moon! There is no
wind, and it rises slowly but steadily! Deacon Fletcher's house is on
fire!

Her shrill cries, uttered in wild and rapid succession, aroused the
household of Peter Hopkins to the fact that there was fire
somewhere--fire, that most terrible fiend to awake before in the dead of
night. As for Hannah, it was but an instant's work for her to throw on a
little clothing and spring from the low window into the yard. Then she
ran, with what trembling speed she might, towards the burning house.

The smoke still rose sombre and heavy from the roof, and about one of
the chimneys little tongues of flame leaped up as she approached. She
could hear a fierce crackling, too, of that spiteful sort made by the
burning of dry wood. The house was all of wood, and old, and it was
evidently thoroughly afire within.

She realized this as she hurried up to it. In the brief seconds of her
crossing the field and leaping a small stream that ran near the house,
she thought of Jason, so noble, so self-denying, so persecuted, so
beautiful, lying there in his little upper room, powerless from the
fever, and doomed to die a dreadful death. She thought of him, weak and
helpless, with no strength even to shrink from the flames that should
lap over him and lick him to death with their fiery tongues. All this as
she sped across the field and leaped the stream.

Reaching the house, she glanced upward, and could perceive the light of
the flames already showing itself through the upper front windows, next
the room where slept the Deacon and his wife. Fortunately Jason's room
was in the rear. Then she remembered that an old nurse from the village
watched with him, and she called fiercely on her name, but with no
response.

As she had approached the house, the nearest outer door was that facing
the road, immediately over which the fire was evidently about to break
out, and this door she tried, finding it fast. Then she remembered a
side entrance, through an old wood-shed, that was seldom locked, and she
immediately made her way to it.

Meanwhile the fire was busy with the dry wood-work of the house, and
though there was no wind, it spread with fearful rapidity. Already the
flames had burst out through the roof in two or three places, and in the
front of the house they were cruelly curling and creeping about the
eaves. They seemed confined, however, to the upper portion of the
building, and therein she had hope.

As she had anticipated, she found the side door unfastened, and she made
her way rapidly to the foot of the back stairway. When she opened the
door to ascend, a thick, black smoke rushed down, almost overpowering
her. The opening of the door seemed to aid the fire, too, and there was
a sort of explosive eagerness in the new start it took as it now
crackled and roared above her. Then she recognized in the sickening
smoke a smell of burning feathers, and she felt faint and weak as she
thought that it might be _his_ bed that was on fire.

This was only for an instant. Staggering backward before the cloud of
smoke, with outstretched, groping hands, like one suddenly struck blind,
an 'instinct,' or what you please to call it, struck her, and she tore
off her flannel petticoat, wrapping it about her head and shoulders.
Then, holding her hands over mouth and nose, she rushed desperately up
the stairs.

No one, unless he has been through such a smoke, can conceive of the
trials she had to undergo in mounting those stairs. No one can fancy,
except from the recollection of such an experience, how the fierce heat
beat her back when she reached the upper hall. The walls were not yet
fully on fire, but great tongues of flame curled along the ceiling, and
hot blasts swept across her path.

She knew his room. It was but a step to it, and the door opened easily.
The nurse was fast asleep, so fast that poor Hannah's warning cry, as
she stumbled in, hardly aroused her. On the bed lay Jason, so thin, so
white, so corpse-like, she would hardly have known him. In the fierce
strength of her despair it was no task to lift that emaciated body, but,
ah! how to get out of the house with it? For when she turned she saw
that the hall was now wholly on fire.

But she did not hesitate. Wrapping him quickly and tenderly in a blanket
taken from the bed, she rushed out into the flames.

Meanwhile Peter Hopkins and his 'hired man' had been aroused by Hannah's
first screams, and had hurriedly scrambled on a portion of their
clothing and rushed out. They had been in time--running quickly across
the field--to see Hannah disappear behind the house. Neither of them
supposed for an instant that she had entered it.

Trying the front door, and finding it fast, Peter uplifted his stout
foot and kicked it crashing in, but he found it impossible to enter by
the breach he had made. The front stairway was all in flames, and the
fierce heat drove him hopelessly back. Then they ran around to the rear.
By this time the entire upper portion of the building seemed to be one
mass of fire and smote, and now they could hear shrill and terrible
shrieks, evidently proceeding from the suddenly awakened inmates. They
ran to the kitchen door and burst it in.

As they did so there rushed towards them from the foot of the kitchen
stairs some horrible, blazing, and unnatural shape, that came stumbling
but swiftly forward. With it came smoke and flame and a horrible sound
of stifled moans.

At the approach of this strange and unsightly object they sprang back
amazed, and it passed them headlong into the open air; passed them and
_dropped apart_, as it were, into the stream before the door.

For many years thereafter the slumbers of Farmer Hopkins were disturbed
by visions of what he saw when the two two parts of that terrible
apparition were taken from the water.

There lay Hannah Lee, no longer beautiful and fresh as the morning, but
blackened, crisped, scorched and shrunken, with all her wealth of silken
hair burned to ashes, with all her clear loveliness of complexion gone
forever. And there lay Jason Fletcher, unburned,--so carefully had she
covered him as she fled,--but senseless, and to all appearance a corpse.

Thus Hannah Lee went through fire and water, even unto worse than death,
for the sake of him she loved. And verily she had her reward.

When the sun rose, there only remained a black and ugly pit to mark the
place where Deacon Fletcher's house had stood.

And of all its inmates, only Jason--carefully watched and tended at the
house of Peter Hopkins--was left to tell the tale of that night's
tragedy. And he, poor fellow, had no tale to tell, the delirium of fever
having been upon him all the night. It was very doubtful if he would
recover,--more than doubtful. Not one in a thousand could do so, with
such an exposure at the critical period of his sickness.

Even more tenderly, with even more anxiety, did all in the country round
minister to poor Hannah Lee. The story of her love, of her bravery, of
her heroic self-abnegation, spread throughout all those parts, and there
was no end to what was done for her by neighbors and friends. So widely
did her fame spread, that people from thirty, forty, and even fifty
miles away came to see her, or sent messages, or money, or delicacies to
comfort her.

What _could_ be done for them was done, and they both lived.

When Jason Fletcher arose from his sick bed, he arose another man than
the Jason Fletcher who was thrown down in the arbor by Farmer Hopkins.
He went sick, a dependent, simple, good-hearted, though impatient boy,
worn out by the constraints of twenty years, but capable of future
cultivation and improvement; he arose from his sickness a moody,
cross-grained, dogged and impatient man, whose only memories were tinged
red with wrong, and made bitter by thought of what he had endured. It
was little matter to him that all his father's broad acres were now his
own--the thought of the horrible death his parents had died only
suggested a question in his mind, whether it were not a 'judgment' on
them: they having lived to persecute him too long already. Through all
the vista of his past life he saw only gloom and shadows, and no ray of
brightness cheered the retrospective glance.

No ray? Yes, there was one. He saw a fair young girl, loving and
innocent, whose sweet face scarce ever left his thoughts. She reigned
where father and mother held no sway; and she made, with the sunshine of
her love, a clear heaven for him even in the purgatory of the past. So
he lay, slowly gathering strength, dreaming about her. And presently
they told him--gently as might be--how she had saved him. And they
nearly killed him in the telling.

When he was well enough to be about, it was strange that they would not
allow him to see her. She was still very ill, they said, and the doctor,
a reasonable man enough usually, utterly refused him admission to her
chamber. He fretted at this, and as he gained strength he 'went wrong.'

Mingled with the memory of his old privations was a full assurance of
his present liberty. He was of age, and he owned, by right, all the
extensive property the Deacon, his father, had so laboriously amassed.
During all his boyhood he had never had a shilling, at any one time,
that he could call his own; now hundreds of pounds stood ready at his
bidding, and he proceeded very speedily to spend them. During all his
boyhood he had been cut off from the amusements common to the youth of
that day; now he launched out into the most extravagant pleasures his
money could procure. Money was nothing, for he had it in plenty;
character was nothing, for he had none to lose; only love remained to
him of all the good things he might have held, and love lay bleeding
while he was denied access to Hannah. Love lay bleeding, and he turned
for comfort to the wine-cup, and raised Bacchus to the place Cupid
should have occupied. Alas for Jason Fletcher!

Weeks rolled on and passed into months, and still he was refused speech
with, or right of, Hannah. And he chafed at the denial. Had she not
risked everything to save his life? And he could not even thank her!

At length, being unable to find further excuse wherewith to put him off,
they one day told him he could see his love. They endeavored to prepare
him by hints and suggestions as to the probable consequences of the
trial she had passed through, but all that they could say or he imagine
had not prepared him for the fearful sight.

Poor Hannah Lee! This scarred, deformed and helpless body, without
proper hands--oh! white hands, how well he remembered them!--without
comeliness of form or feature, was all that was left of the once
glorious creature, whose heaven-given beauty had ensnared his fresh and
untutored heart! Poor Hannah Lee!

The rough youth, loving her yet, but repelled by the horrible aspect she
presented, fell sobbing upon his knees and buried his face in the
bed-clothing. He spoke no word, but the tumultuous throes of his agony
shook the room as he knelt beside her. And from the bed arose a wail
more terrible in its utter, eternal sorrowfulness than had ever fallen
upon the ears of those present. It was the wail of a soul recognizing
for the first time that the loveliness of life had passed away forever.

They mingled their cries thus for a little time, and then Jason arose
and staggered from the room. He would have spoken, but the dreadful
sorrow rose up and choked him. All the memories of the past were linked
with youth and beauty. He could not speak to the blight before him, as
to his love and his life, and so, with blind and lumbering footsteps, he
toiled heavily from the house.

The fires of the Revolution had broken forth and swept over New England,
burning out like stubble the little loyalty to the crown left in men's
hearts.

At the battle of Bunker Hill Jason Fletcher fought like a tiger. Last
among the latest, he clubbed his musket, and was driven slowly backward
from the slight redoubt.

He was heard of at White Plains, at Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine,
Germantown, and always with marvelous mention of courage and prowess.
Then he was promoted from the ranks, and was mentioned as 'Lieutenant
Fletcher.' Then there were rumors of some dishonor that had sullied the
brightness of his fame; and then it came to be hinted about that in all
the rank and file of the patriot army there was no one so utterly
dissolute and drunken as he. And then came news of his ignominiously
quitting the service, and a cloud dropped down about him, and no word,
good or bad, came home from the castaway any more.

Meanwhile poor Hannah Lee languished upon her bed of suffering, but did
not die. And finally, when spring after spring had spread new verdure
over the rough hills among which she dwelt, she got, by little and
little, to venturing out into the village streets. And when they saw her
bowed form and her ugly, misshapen hands, the village children, knowing
her history, forbore to sneer at or taunt her. All the village loved the
unfortunate creature, and all the village strove together to do her
kindness.

One man in the town--a cousin of Jason the wanderer--was supposed to
hold communication with him. This man notified Hannah one day that a
safe life annuity had been purchased for her, and thereafter she lived
at the house of Farmer Hopkins, not as a loved dependent, but as a
cherished and faithful friend. Thus freed from the bitter sting of
helpless poverty, Hannah sank resignedly into a quiet and honorable
life.

At length, one warm summer day, when Jason Fletcher should have been
about forty years of age, there strayed into the village a blind
mendicant, with a dog for guide, and a wooden leg rudely fastened to one
stiff s

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