The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862
by Various · English · Gutenberg #18977 · 456,057 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862
Author: Various
Release date: August 3, 2006 [eBook #18977]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18977
Credits: Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, VOL. 1, NO. 1, JANUARY 1862 ***
Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections)
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOLUME I. 1862.
BOSTON:
J. R. GILMORE, 110 TREMONT STREET.
NEW YORK: GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 532 BROADWAY.
ROSS & TOUSEY, AND H. DEXTER AND COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA T. B. PETERSON & BROTHER
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by
JAMES R. GILMORE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
JOHN A. GRAY
PRINTER & STEREOTYPER,
16 and 18 Jacob St.
* * * * *
INDEX TO VOLUME I
Across the Continent. Hon. Horace Greeley, 78
Active Service; or, Campaigning In Western Virginia, 330
Actress Wife, the, 64, 139
Among the Pines. Edmund Kirke, 35, 187, 322, 438, 710
Ante-Norse Discoverers of America, the. C. G. Leland, 389, 531
Beaufort District--Past, Present, and Future. Frederic Kidder, 381
Black Witch, the. J. Warren Newcombe, Jr., 155
BOOKS RECEIVED, 94, 348, 469
Bright, John. George M. Towle, 525
Brown's Lecture Tour. Wm. Wirt Sikes, 118
Cabinet Session, 339
Campbell, The late Lord Chancellor, George M. Towle, 285
Columbia's Safety, 578
Constitution and Slavery, the. Rev. C. E. Lord, 619
Cotton, is it our King? Edward Atkinson, 247
Danger, Our, and its Cause. Hon. Geo.C. Boutwell, 219
Desperation and Colonization. C. G. Leland, 657
EDITORS TABLE, 95-112, 228-240, 349-368
470-492, 605-618, 727-749
Education to be, the. Levi Reuben, M.D., 592, 662
Edwards Family, the. Rev. W. Frothingham, 11
Edwards, Jonathan, and the Old Clergy. Rev. W. Frothingham, 265
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Miss Delia M. Colton, 48
Fairies, 524
Fatal Marriage of Bill the Soundser, the. W. L. Tiffany, 395
Fugitives at the West. Miss S. C. Blackwell, 582
General Lyon. Miss Delia M. Colton, 465
Good Wife, the. A Norwegian Story, 290
Graveyard at Princeton, the. Miss McFarlane, 32
Green Corn Dance, the. John Howard Payne, 17
Guerdon, 601
Hamlet a Fat Man. Carlton Edwards, 571
Heir of Roseton, the. Champion Bissell, 210
Howe's Cave, 422
Huguenot Families in America. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 151, 298, 461
Huguenots of Staten Island. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 683
Irving, Washington, Recollections of, 689
Knights of the Golden Circle, the. Charles G. Leland, 473
LITERARY NOTICES, 91-93, 226-227, 346-348
466-468, 602-604, 724-726
Lowell, James Russell. Miss Delia M. Colton, 176
Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland, 302, 414, 513, 647
Molly O'Molly Papers, the. 449, 502
Motley, John Lothrop. Miss Delia M. Colton, 309
One of my Predecessors. Bayard Taylor, 273
On the Plains. Hon. Horace Greeley, 167
Our War and our Want. C. G. Leland, 113
Patterson's Campaign in Virginia, 257
Philosophic Bankrupt. Henry T. Lee, 496
POETRY:
All Together, 506
Black Flag, the. C. G. Leland, 138
Changed. Mrs. Paul Ackers, 570
Child's Call at Eventide, 289
Columbia to Britannia, 404
En Avant, 656
England, To, C. G. Leland, 209
Freedom's Stars, 166
Game of Fate, the. C. G. Leland, 268
Hemming Cotton. C. G. Leland, 272
Lesson of War, the. Henry Carey Lea, 46
Lessons of the Hour, the. Edward L. Rand, Jr., 320
Monroe to Farragut. C. G. Leland, 709
New-England's Advance. Augusta C. Kimball, 701
Potential Moods, 427
Red, White, and Blue, the. 646
Rosin the Bow. B. B. Foster, 29
Self-Reliance, 149
She Sits Alone. Henry P. Leland, 225
Song of Freedom. Edward L. Rand, Jr., 76
Sonnet. H. T. Tuckerman, 16
Sphinx and OEdipus. T. H. Underwood, 63
Spur of Monmouth, the. Henry Morford, 392
Ten to One on it. C. G. Leland, 465
Watchword, the. 126
Westward, 246
What will you do with us? C. G. Leland, 175
Progress, is it a Truth? Henry P. Leland, 6
Resurgamus. Henry P. Leland, 186
Roanoke Island. Frederic Kidder, 541
Seven Devils. Rev. F. W. Shelton, 171
Seward's, Mr., Published Diplomacy, 199
Situation, the. Richard B. Kimball, 1
Sketches of Edinburgh Literati. Rev. W. Frothingham, 453
Slave-Trade in New-York. Mr. Wilder, 86
Southern Aids to the North. C.G. Leland, 242, 445
State Rights. Sinclair Tousey, 535
Story of Mexican Life, 552, 627
Tints and Tones of Paris. H.T. Tuckerman, 127
Travel-Pictures. Henry T. Lee, 676
True Basis. C. G. Leland, 136
True Interest of Nations, the. C.C. Hazewell, 428
True Story. Miss McFarlane, 507
Ursa Major, 579
War between Freedom and Slavery in Missouri, the. 369
Was he Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 702
What shall we do with it? Hon. John W. Edmonds, 493
What to do with the Darkies. C. G. Leland, 84
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. I.--JANUARY, 1862.--NO. I.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Situation, 1
Is Progress a Truth? 6
The Edwards Family, 11
Sonnet, 16
The Green Corn Dance, 17
Rosin the Bow, 29
The Graveyard at Princeton, 32
Among the Pines, 35
The Lesson of War, 46
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 49
Sphinx and OEdipus, 63
The Actress-Wife, 64
Song of Freedom, 76
Across the Continent, 78
What to do with the Darkies, 84
The Slave Trade in New York, 86
Literary Notices, 91
The Rejected Stone;
The Works of Francis Bacon;
The Old Log Schoolhouse;
Songs in Many Keys.
Books Received, 94
Editor's Table, 95
THE FEBRUARY NUMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL
Will be issued about the 15th of January, and will contain contributions
from the following among other eminent writers: HON. HORACE GREELEY,
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN, REV. F. W. SHELTON, RICHARD B. KIMBALL, BAYARD
TAYLOR, J. WARREN NEWCOMB, JR., HENRY P. LELAND, THE AUTHOR OF "THE
COTTON STATES," CHARLES G. LELAND, and CHARLES F. BROWNE.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1801, by JAMES R.
GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill, Boston.
* * * * *
THE SITUATION.
In the month of November, 1860, culminated the plot against our National
existence. The conspiracy originated in South Carolina, and had a
growth, more or less checked by circumstances, of over thirty years.
For John C. Calhoun had conceived the idea of an independent position
for that State some time previous to the passage of the 'nullification
ordinance' in November, 1832. This man, although he bore no resemblance
in personal qualities to the Roman conspirator, is chargeable with the
same crime which Cicero urged against Cataline--that of 'corrupting the
youth.' His mind was too logical to adopt the ordinary propositions
about slavery, such as, 'a great but necessary evil;' 'we did not plant
it, and now we have it, we can't get rid of it,' and the like; but,
placing his back to the wall where it was impossible to outflank him, he
defended it, by all the force of his subtle intellect, as a permanent
institution. His followers refined on their master's lessons, and
asserted that it was one of the pillars on which a republic must rest!
Here was the origin of the most wicked and most audacious plot ever
attempted against any government. This plot did not involve any contest
for political power in the administration of public affairs. That, the
Southern leaders already possessed, but with that they were not content.
They were determined to destroy the Republic itself,--to literally blot
it out of existence. And why? What could betray intelligent and educated
men, persons esteemed wise in their generation, into an attempt which
amazes the civilized world, and at which posterity will be appalled? We
answer, it was the old leaven which has worked always industriously in
the breast of man since the creation--AMBITION. Corrupted by
the idea that a model republic must have slavery for its basis, knowing
that the free States could not much longer tolerate the theory, certain
leading individuals decided to dismember the country. They cast their
eyes across Texas to the fertile plains of Mexico, and so southward.
They indulged in the wildest dreams of conquest and of empire. The whole
southern continent would in time be occupied and under their control. An
aristocracy was to be built up, on which possibly a monarchy would be
engrafted. In this way a new feudal system was to be developed, negro
for serf, and a race of noble creatures spring forth, the admirable of
the earth, whose men should be famed as the world's chivalry, and whose
women should be the most beautiful and most accomplished of all the
daughters of Eve. The peaceful drudge and artisan of the North, ox-like
in their character, should serve them as they might require, and the
craven man of commerce should buy and sell for their accommodation. For
the rest, the negro would suffice. This was the extraordinary scheme of
the South Carolina 'aristocrat,' and with which he undertook to infect
certain unscrupulous leaders throughout the cotton and sugar States. It
was no part of the plan of the conspirators to precipitate the border
States into rebellion. O no! On the contrary, it was specially set forth
in the programme entrusted to the exclusive few, that those States were
to remain in the 'Old Union' as a fender between the 'South' and the
free States; always ready in Congress to stand up for a good fugitive
slave law, and various other little privileges, and prepared to threaten
secession if Congress did not yield just what was demanded. In this way
the free States would be perpetually entangled by embarrassing
questions, and the new empire left to pursue unrestricted its dazzling
plans of conquest and occupation.
A comfortable arrangement truly, and one very easy of
accomplishment,--provided the free States would consent.
'Certainly they will consent. Trade, commerce, manufactures and
mechanical pursuits, occupy them exclusively, and these promise better
results under the new order of things than under the old. As to
patriotism or public spirit, the North have neither. The people do not
even resent a personal affront, much less will they go to war for an
idea.'
So reasoned the South.
'It is not possible those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They
are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really
devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea of separating from
us.'
So reasoned the North.
Neither side thought the other in earnest. Both were mistaken.
Negro slaves were introduced into Virginia as early as 1620. In the year
1786 England employed in the slave-trade 130 ships, and that year alone
seized and carried from their homes into slavery 42,000 blacks.
Wilberforce experienced many defeats through the influence of the
slave-trade interest, but at length carried his point, and the trade was
finally abolished in England in 1807,--not a very remote period
certainly. The same year witnessed the suppression of the slave-trade in
our own country; but, unfortunately, not the abolition of
slave-_holding_. All our readers understand how, when the Constitution
of the United States was adopted, slavery was regarded entirely as a
domestic matter, left to each of the States to manage and dispose of as
each saw fit. But at that period there was no dissenting voice to the
proposition, that, abstractly considered, slave-holding was wrong; yet
the owner of a large number of negroes could honestly declare he was
himself innocent of the first transgression, and ignorant of any
practicable way to get rid of the evil,--for it was counted an evil.
When the rice, cotton and sugar fields demanded larger developments, it
was counted a _necessary_ evil. Congress was called on for more guards
and pledges, and gave them freely. It disclaimed any power to interfere
with what had now become an institution; it had no power to do so. It
went further, and by legislation sought fully to protect the
slave-holding States in the perfect enjoyment of their rights under the
Constitution.
Meanwhile many wise and good men, North and South, who regarded slavery
as a blight and a curse upon the States where it existed, endeavored by
all the means in their power to prepare the way for gradual
emancipation. It seemed at one time that they would succeed in Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. In Virginia, an emancipation act failed
of passing by a single vote.
About the time that Calhoun was spreading the heresy of his state-rights
doctrine in South Carolina and taking his 'logical ground' on the
slavery question, a class, then almost universally branded as fanatics,
but whose proportions have since very largely swelled, arose at the
North, which were a match for the South Carolina senator with his own
weapons. Each laid hold of an extreme point and maintained it. We refer
to the Abolitionists of thirty years ago, under Garrison, Tappan & Co.
These people seized on a single idea, exclusive of any other, and went
nearly mad over it. Apparently blind to the evils around them, which
were close at hand, within their own doors, swelling perhaps in their
own hearts, they were suddenly 'brought to see' the 'vile enormity' of
slave-holding. Their argument was very simple. 'Slavery is an awful sin
in the sight of God. Slave-holders are awful sinners. We of the North,
having made a covenant with such sinners, are equally guilty of the sin
of slavery with them. Slavery must be immediately abolished. _Fiat
justitia ruat coelum_. Better that the Republic fall than continue in
the unholy league one day.' These men were ready to 'dissolve the
Union,' to disintegrate the nation, to blast the hopes of perhaps
millions of persons over the world, who were watching with anxious
hearts the experiment of our government, trembling lest it should fail.
In South Carolina John C. Calhoun was ready to do the same. And thus
extremes met.
Meanwhile the Southern conspirators pursued their labors. Gathering up
the reports of the meetings of the Abolition Societies, and selecting
the most inflammable extracts from the speeches of the most violent,
they circulated them far and wide, as indications of the hostile spirit
of the North, and as proofs of the impossibility of living under the
same government with people who were determined to destroy their
domestic institutions and stir up servile insurrections. The
Abolitionists saw the alarm of the South, and pressed their advantage.
Thus year after year passed, till the memorable November elections of
1860. The conspirators received the intelligence of the election of
Lincoln with grim satisfaction. The Abolitionists witnessed the progress
of secession in the various States with a joy they did not attempt to
conceal. 'Now we can pursue our grand scheme of empire,' exclaimed the
Southern traitors. 'Now shall we see the end of slavery,' cried the
Abolitionists. Strange that neither gave a thought about the destruction
of the glorious fabric which the wisest and best men, North and South,
their own fathers, had erected. Strange, not one sigh was breathed in
prospect of the death of a nation. Incredible that no misgiving checked
the exultation of either party, lest, in destroying the temple of
Liberty and scattering its fragments, it might never again be
reconstructed. The conspirator, South, saw only the consummation of his
mad projects of ambition. The Abolitionist North, regarded only the
_immediate_ emancipation of a large number of slaves, most of whom,
incapable, through long servitude, of self-control, would be thrown
miserably on the world. Neither party thought or cared a jot about their
common country. Neither regarded the stars and stripes with the least
emotion. To one, it was secondary to the emblem of a sovereign State. To
the other, there was no beauty in its folds, because it waved over a
race in bondage.
The day after the battle of Bull Run found these two extremes still in
sympathy. Both were still rejoicing. The rebel recognized the hand of
Providence in the victory, so did the Abolitionist: one, because it
would secure to the South its claims; the other, because it would rouse
the North to a fiercer prosecution of the war, which had hitherto been
waged with 'brotherly reluctance.' Here we leave these sympathizing
extremes, and proceed to survey the situation.
The first point we note is, that in the South the war did not originate
with the people, but with certain conspirators. In the North, the mighty
armament to conquer rebellion is the work of the people alone, not of a
cabinet. In the South, it was with difficulty the inhabitants were
precipitated into 'secession.' Indeed, in certain States the leaders
dared not risk a popular vote. In the North, the rulers, appalled by
the extraordinary magnitude of the crisis, were timid and hesitating,
until the inhabitants rose in a body to save their national existence.
It is no answer to this assertion, that large armies are arrayed against
us, which engage with animosity in the war. The die cast, the several
States committed to the side of treason, there was no alternative: fight
they must. As the devil is said to betray his victims into situations
where they are compelled to advance from bad to worse, so the
conspirators adroitly hastened the people into overt acts from which
they were told there was no retreat. We believe these facts to have had
great influence with our Government; and in this way we can understand
the generous but mistaken forbearance of the administration in the
earlier stages of the contest,--we say mistaken, because it was entirely
misunderstood by the other side, and placed to the account of cowardice,
imbecility or weakness; and because there can be no middle course in
carrying on a war. We have suffered enough by it already in money and
men; we must suffer no more. Besides, we lose self-respect, and gain
only the contempt of the enemy. When the bearer of General Sherman's
polite proclamation, addressed 'to the _loyal_ citizens of South
Carolina,' communicated it to the two officers near Beaufort, they
replied, with courteous _nonchalance_, 'Your mission is fruitless; there
are no loyal citizens in the State.' The general's action in the
premises reminds us of that of a worthy clergyman who gave notice that
in the morning of the following Sunday he would preach to the young, in
the afternoon to the old, in the evening to sinners. The two first
services were respectably attended; to the last, not a soul came.
There are no 'sinners' in South Carolina, and General Sherman had better
try his hand at something else besides paper persuasions. At all events,
we suggest that future proclamations be addressed to those for whom such
documents are usually framed, to wit, rebels in arms against constituted
authority.[1]
But to our case. We have a rebellion to crush,--a rebellion large in its
proportions, threatening in its aspect, but lacking in elements of real
strength, and liable to collapse at any moment. To put down this
rebellion is the sole object and purpose of the war. We are not fighting
to enrich a certain number of army contractors, nor to give employment
to half a million of soldiers, or promotion to the officers who command
them. Neither are we fighting to emancipate the slaves. It is true the
army contractors do get rich, the half million of soldiers are employed,
the officers who command them receive advancement, and the slaves _may_
be liberated. But this is not what we fight _for_. On this head the
people have made no mistake. In the outset they proclaimed that this war
was to decide the question of government or no government, country or no
country, national existence or no national existence. And we must go
straight to this mark. We have nothing to do with any issue except how
to save the nation. If this shall require the emancipation of every
negro in the Southern States, then every negro must be emancipated. And
this brings us to another proposition, to wit, that the day is past for
discussing this slave question in a corner. This bug-bear of
politicians, this ancient annoyance to the Northern Democrat and the
Southern old-line Whig, this colored Banquo, will no longer 'down.' We
can no longer affect ignorance of the spectre's presence. It is forced
on us in the house and by the way. It follows the march of our armies.
It is present at the occupation of our Southern ports and towns and
villages. Martial law is impotent to deal with it. It frightens by its
ugly shadow our Secretary of War; in vain our good President tries to
avoid it; in vain we adopt new terms, talk about contrabands, and the
like; the inevitable African will present himself, and we are compelled
to recognize him.
Notwithstanding we fight for no other end than to save the Republic, we
are absolutely driven into the consideration of the slave question,
because it involves the very existence of any republic. This question is
not whether bondage is to cease throughout the world; but whether it is
compatible with a free government, such as we claim our own to be. In
other words, is Slavery in the United States to-day on trial? We must
_all_ abandon our morbid sensitiveness and come squarely to the
consideration of the vital point, to wit, can this great Republic be
held together while the 'peculiar system' exists in a part of it? No
matter who first posed this ugly query,--Calhoun or Garrison. We have
now to answer it. We dare not, we can not, we will not give up our
country to disunion and severance. To save it has already cost us an eye
and a hand, and now this unhappy subject must be disposed of, disposed
of honestly, conscientiously, with the temper of men who feel that the
_principle_ of our government is soon to fail or triumph. If to fail,
the cause would seem to be lost forever. What then? Why only a monarchy
on our Southern border, insolent provinces on our Northern; Spain
strengthened in her position, and recovering her lost ground; Mexico an
empire; England audacious and overbearing as of yore, and France joining
to fill our waters with mighty naval armaments. _We_, having witnessed
the dismemberment of our country, and possessing no longer a
nationality, but broken into fragments, to become the jest and
laughingstock of the world, which would point to us and say, 'These
people began to build, and were not able to finish!'
How do you fancy the picture? Do you think any morbid delicacy, any fear
of giving offense to our 'loyal Southern brethren,' should prevent our
examining this slave question? We raise, be it understood, no foregone
conclusion, we do not even pronounce on the result of the examination;
but examine it we must. Not the President, with his honest desire to
preserve every guaranteed right to the South; not the Secretary of
State, who unites the qualities of a timid man with those of a radical,
and who is therefore by instinct temporizing and 'diplomatic;' not any
other member of the cabinet, dare longer attempt to slide over or around
it. We observe, we venture on no conclusion in advance. We are not
prepared to say, if the South in a body should seek now to return to
their allegiance, that they could not hedge in and save their
'institution.' But we should still desire to discuss the subject
carefully.
So long as slavery was tolerated as a domestic custom long established
and difficult to deal with, it stood in the list of permitted evils
which all condemn, yet which it seems impossible to get rid of. But it
is one thing to _tolerate_ an evil, quite another to adopt it as a good.
And we declare that never in the world's history was there an attempt so
shameless and audacious as that to found a government on slavery as a
cornerstone! Is it possible to conceive of more ungoverned depravity or
a madness more complete?[2]
There have been contests innumerable on the earth. We read of wars for
conquest, to avenge national insults, about disputed territory, against
revolted provinces, and between dynasties; civil wars, religious wars,
wars for the succession, to preserve the balance of power, and so forth.
But never before was a war inaugurated to _establish_ slavery as a
principle of the government. We can predict no other fate for the
leaders in this diabolical plot than discomfiture and defeat. We have
an unwavering faith that the Republic will come out of this contest
stronger than ever before; that it will become a light to lighten the
nations, the hope of the lovers of liberty everywhere. But we will not
anticipate.
In periods like the present, circumstances appear to be charged with
vital and intelligent properties, working out and solving problems which
have disturbed and puzzled the wisest and most astute. At such times
impertinent intermeddlers abound, who claim to interpret the oracles,
and who would hasten the birth of events by acting as midwife. It is
impossible to dispose of or silence such people. We should be careful
that we are not misled by their egregious pretensions. The fact is, the
whole history of our race should teach us a lesson of profound humility.
We do not accomplish half so much for ourselves as is accomplished for
us. True, we have something to do. The seed will not grow if it be not
planted; but all our skill and cunning can not make it spring up and
blossom, and bear fruit in perfection. Neither can man work out events
after a plan of his own. He is made, in the grand drama of this world,
to work out the designs of the Almighty. We must accept this or accept
nothing. In this light how futile are the intemperate ravings of one
class, the unreasonable complaints of another, the cunning plots of a
third. We see no escape from a threatening danger, we perceive no path
out of a labyrinthine maze of evil; when, lo! through some apparently
trifling incident, by some slight and insignificant occurrence, the
whole order of things is changed, the impending danger vanishes, and we
thread the labyrinth with ease.
We believe God will provide us a way out of our present troubles. Only
we must do our duty, which is to maintain our common country, our flag,
the Republic ENTIRE.
Thus much at present. Where this war is to carry us, what shall be its
effect on us as a people, what great changes are in progress, and what
may result from them, we will discuss at the proper time, in a future
number.
IS PROGRESS A TRUTH?
'Human nature has been the same in all ages.'
'Men are pretty much the same wherever you find them.'
If there be anything in this world from which it would be desirable to
see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which
expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the
fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand
summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this
flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the
pitiful and painful. Oh! if the _ne plus ultra_ which antique Ignorance
complacently inscribes on the gates of its world should ever be worn
away, let it be replaced by this owlish _credo_ in the unchangeableness
of man.
The refutation of these sayings has been the history of humanity, and
yet no argument on political or social topics fails to contain them in
one form or another. Even now, in the tremendous debate maintained by
common logic and 'fist law' between our North and South, we find them
enunciated with a clearness and precision unequaled in any state paper,
unless we except that in which William the Conqueror coolly styled
himself king 'by the right of the sword.' Science, which modestly
announces itself as incomplete the nearer it approaches completion, has
been assumed to be perfect by those most ignorant of it, in order that
its mere observations as to climate and races may be found to prove
that as man is, so he was in all ages, and so must be, 'forever and
forever as we rove.' Races now vanished in the twilight of time have
been boldly declared to be the prototypes of others, now themselves
changing into new forms, and we, unconsciously, like the old Hebrew in
Heine's Italy, repeat curses over the ancient graves of long-departed
foes--ignorant that those curses were long since fulfilled by the
unconquerable and terrible laws which ever hurry us onward and upward,
from everlasting to everlasting, from the first Darkness to the infinite
word of Light.
The assumption that mankind always has been and will be the same,
involves the conclusion that the elements of slavery and scoundrelism,
of suffering and of disorder, are immutable in essence and in
proportion, and that human exertion wastes itself in vain when it
aspires to anything save a rank in the upper ten millions. As for the
mass,--'tis a great pity,--_mais, que voulez vous?_ It is the fortune of
life's war; and then who knows? Perhaps they are as happy in their
sphere as anybody. Only see how they dance! And then they
drink--gracious goodness, how they swig it off! the gay creatures!
Oh,'tis a very fine world, gentlemen, especially if you whitewash it
well, and keep up a plenty of Potemkin card cottages along the road
which winds through the wilderness. But above all--never forget that
they--drink.
It was well enough for a stormy past, but it may not be so well for the
future, that man is prone to hero-worship. Under circumstances, varying,
however, immensely, be it observed, humanity has produced Menus,
Confuciuses, Platos, Ciceros, Sidneys, Spinozas, scholars and gentlemen,
and the ordinary student, seeing them all through a Claude Lorraine
glass of modern tinting, thinks them on the whole wonderfully like
himself. Horace chaffs with Cæsar and Mæcenas, Martial quizzes the world
and the reader very much as modern club-men and poets would do. It is
very convenient to forget how much they have been imitated; still more
so to ignore that in both are stores of recondite mode and feeling as
yet unpenetrated by any scholar of these days. You think, my brave
_Artium Baccalaureus_, that you feel all that Hafiz felt,--surely he
toped and bussed like a good fellow of all times,--and yet for seven
centuries the most embracing of scholars have folioed and disputed over
the real meaning of that Song of Solomon which is now first beginning to
be understood from Hafiz. Man, I tell you that in the old morning of
history there were races whose life-blood glowed hotter than ever yours
did, with a burning faith, such as you never felt, that all which you
now believe to be most execrably infamous was intensely holy. Your
wisest scholars lose themselves in trying to unthread the mazes and
mysteries of those incomprehensible depths of diabolical worship and
intertwined beauty and honor, now known only from trebly diminished
mythologic reflection. Perhaps some of those undecipherable hieroglyphs
of the East are not so unintelligible to you now as they would be if
translated. Do you, for that matter, fully understand why a Hindu yoghi
torments himself for thirty years? I observe that the great majority of
our good, kind missionaries have no glimmering of an idea why it is
done. Brother Zeal, of the first part, says it is superstition. Father
Squeal, of the second part, says it is the devil. Very good indeed--so
far as it goes.
But look to later ages, and see whether man has been so strikingly
similar to us of the present day. There are manias and mysteries of the
Middle Ages whose history is smothered in darkness; lost to us out of
sheer incapacity to be understood from any modern standpoint of sense or
feeling whatever. What do you make out of that crusade of scores of
thousands of unarmed, delirious Christians, who started eastward to
redeem the holy sepulchre; all their faith and hope of safety being in a
goose and a pig which they bore with them? And they all died, those
earnest Goose-and-Pigites; died in untold misery and murder--unhappy
'superstition again.' That bolt is soon shot; but I have my misgivings
whether it reaches the mark.
Or what do you make of untold and unutterable horrors, or crimes, as
they were deemed, which to us seem bewildering nonsense? What of
were-wolf manias, of districts made horrible by nightmare and
vampyreism, urged to literal and incredible reality; of abominations
which no modern wickedness dare hint at, but which raged like epidemics?
Or what of the Sieur de Gilles, with his thousand or two of girl
children elaborately tortured to death--and he a type and not a sporad?
'But,' we are told, 'men would do all this over again, if they dared.
The vice is all here, safely housed away snug as ever, only waiting its
time.' I grant it--just as I grant that the same atoms and elements
which once formed mastodons and trilobites are here--and with about as
much chance of reappearing as mastodons as humanity has of reproducing
those antique horrors. The fragments of witch-madness and star-faith may
be still raked in tolerably perfect lumps out of the mire or chaff of
mankind; but I do not think, young lady, that you will ever be accused
of riding on a broom, though you unquestionably had an ancestress,
somewhere before or after Hengist, who enjoyed the reputation of
understanding that unpopular mode of volatility. _Pommade Dupuytren_ and
_Eau de toilette_ have taken the place of the witch-ointments; and if
the spice-powder of the old alchemist Mutio di Frangipani has risen from
the recipes of the Middle Ages into modern fashion, rest assured that it
will never work wonder more, save in connection with bright eyes,
rustling fans, and Valenciennes-edged pocket-handkerchiefs.
To the student to whom all battles of the past are not like the dishes
of certain Southern hotels,--all served in the same gravy, possessing
the same agrarian, muttony flavor,--and to whom Zoroaster and Spurgeon
are not merely clergymen, differing only in dress and language, it must
appear plain enough that as there are now on earth races physically
differing from one another almost as much as from other mammalia, just
so in the course of ages have been developed in the same single descent
even greater mental and moral differences. In fact, when we remember
that the same lust, avarice, ambition and warfare have mingled with our
blood at all times, it becomes wonderful when we reflect how marvelously
the mind has been molded to such myriad varieties. It has in full
consciousness of its power sacrificed all earthly happiness, toiled and
died for rulers, for ideas of which it had no idea, for vague
war-cries--it has existed only for sensuality, or beauty, or food--for
religion or for ostentation, according to different climate or age or
soil--it has groveled for ages in misery or roamed free and proud--and
between the degraded slave and the proud free-man there is, as I think,
a very terrible difference indeed. But, quitting the vast variety of
mental developments, faiths, and _feelings_, let us cast a glance on the
general change which history has witnessed in man's physical condition.
First let us premise with certain general laws, that intelligence,
physical well-being and freedom have a decided affinity, and are most
copiously unfolded in manufacturing countries. That as labor is
developed and elaborated, it becomes allied to science and art, and, in
a word, 'respectable.' That as these advance it becomes constantly more
evident that he who strives to accomplish his labor in the most perfect
manner is continually becoming a man of science and an artist, and
rising to a well deserved intellectual equality with the 'higher
classes.' That, in fine, the tendency of industry--which in this age is
only a synonym for the action of capital--is towards Republicanism.
I have already remarked to the effect that so far as the welfare of man
in the future is concerned, it is to be regretted that hero-worship
should still influence men so largely. When Mr. Smith runs over his
scanty historical knowledge, things do not seem so bad on the whole with
anybody. Mark Antony and Coriolanus and Francis the First, the plumed
barons of the feudal days, and their embroidered and belaced ladies,
with the whole merrie companie of pages, fools, troubadours and heralds,
seem on the whole to have had fine times of it. 'Bloweth seed and
groweth mead'--assuredly the sun shone then as now, people wassailed or
wailed--oh, 'twas pretty much the same in all ages. But when we come to
the most unmistakable _facts_, all this sheen of gilded armor and
egret-plumes, of gemmed goblet and altar-lace, lute, mandolin, and lay,
is cloth of gold over the ghastly, shrunken limbs of a leper. Pass over
the glory of knight and dame and see how it was then with the
multitude--with the millions. Almost at the first glance, in fact, your
knight and dame turn out unwashed, scantily linened, living amid scents
and sounds which no modern private soldier would endure. The venison
pasty of high festival becomes the daily pork and mustard of home life,
with such an array of scrofula and cutaneous disorders as are horrible
to think on. The household books of expenditure of the noblest families
in England in the fourteenth century scarcely show as much linen used
annually among a hundred people as would serve now for one mechanic.
People of the highest rank slept naked to save night-clothes. If in
Flanders or in Italy we find during their high prosperity some
exceptions to this knightly and chivalric piggishness and penury, it is
none the less true that they outbalanced it by sundry and peculiar
vices. And yet, bad as life then was, it is impossible for us to guess
at, or realize, all its foulness. We know it mostly from poets, and the
poet and historian, like the artist, have in every age lived quite out
of the actual, and with all the tact of repulsion avoided common facts.
But it is with the multitude that truth and common sense and humanity
have to deal. And here, whether in Greece or in England, in Italy or in
France, lies in the past an abyss of horror whose greatest wonder is,
that we, who are only some three centuries distant, know so little of
it. There is a favorite compensative theory that man is miraculously
self-adaptive to all circumstances, and that deprived of modern comforts
and luxuries he would only become more vigorous and independent--that in
fact he was on the whole considerably happier under a feudal baron than
he has been since. I will believe in this when I find that a man who has
exchanged a stinging gout for a mere rheumatism finds himself entirely
free from pain. No, the serfs of the Middle Ages were in no sense happy.
Stifled moans of misery, a sense of their unutterable agonies, steal up
from proverb and by-corners of history--we feel that they were more
miserable than jail prisoners at the present day--for then, as now, man
groaned at being an inferior, and he had much more than that to groan
over in those days of strifes and dirt. And yet every one of those serfs
was God's child, as well as the baron who enslaved him. To himself he
was a world with an eternity, and of as much importance as all other
men. Through what strange heresies and insurrections, based either on
innate passion or religious conviction, do we not find Republicanism
bursting out in every age, from remote Etruscan rebellions down to
Peasants' wars, Anabaptist uprisings, and Jack Cade out-flamings. It was
always there, that sense of political equality and right--it always
goaded and tormented man, in the silent darkness of ignorance as in the
broad light of learning.
So long as European society consisted in a great measure of war tempered
by agriculture, there could be but little progress towards a better
state of things. But the germ of industry sprouted and grew, though
slowly. Merchants bought social privileges for money; even law was
grudgingly sold them, and they continued to buy. Against the old
idealism, against bugbears and mythology, fairy tales and astrology,
dreams, spells, charms, muttered exorcisms, commandments to obey master,
ship and serfdom, _de jure divino_, clouds, mists, and lies infinite;
slowly rose that stupendous power of truth and of Nature which had
hitherto in humanity only visited the world in broken gleams. We may
assume different eras for this dividing point between immutability and
progress, between slavery and freedom. In religion, Christianity appears
as first offering future happiness for the people and for all. The
revival of letters and the Reformation were glorious storms, battering
down thousands of old barriers. But in a temporal and worldly point of
view the name of Bacon, perhaps, since a name is still necessary, best
distinguishes between the old and the new. From him--or his age--dates
that grappling with facts, that classifying of all knowledge so soon as
obtained, that _Wissenschaft_ or _Science_ which never goes backward; in
fine, that information which by its dissemination continually equalizes
men and renders rank futile. With science, labor and the laboring man
began at once to rise. Comfort and cleanliness and health for the many
took the place of ancient deprivation and dirt--whether of body or of
soul. Humanity began to improve--for, with all the legends of the
bravery of the Middle Ages, it is apparent enough that their heroes or
soldiers were not so strong or large as the men of the present day. And
through all, amid struggles and strivings and subtle drawbacks and
deceits, worked and won its way the great power of Republicanism or of
Progress, destroying, one by one, illusions, and building up in their
stead fair and enduring realities.
It is but a few decades since the greater portion of all intellectual or
inventive effort was devoted to setting off rank, to exalting the
exalted, and, by contrast, still further degrading the lowly. What were
the glorious works of those mediæval artists in stone and canvas, in
orfevery and silver, in marble and bronze, nielloed salvers, golden
chasing, laces as from fairy-land, canopies, garments and gems? All
beautiful patents of rank, marks to honor wealthy rank--nothing more,
save that and the imperishable proof of genius, which is ever lovely, as
a slave or free. But where goes the inventive talent now? Beaumarchais
worked for a year to make a watch which only 'the king' could buy. Had
he lived to-day he would have striven to invent some improvement which
should be found in every man's watch. It 'pays better,' in a word, to
invent for the poor many than for the rich few--and invention has found
this out. Something which must be had in every cottage,--soap for the
million, medicine for the masses, cheap churns, cheap clocks, always
something of which one can sell many and much,--such are the objects
which claim the labor of genius now. Fools grieve that Art is dead;
'lives at best only in imitation;' and that we have chanced on a
godless, humdrum, steam and leather age--one of prose and dust, facts
and factories. Sometimes come gasping efforts--sickly self-persuasions
that all is not so bad as it seems. Mr. Slasher of the Sunday paper is
quite certain that the Creek Indian Girl statue is far superior to
anything antique, while Crasher, just back from Europe, shakes his head,
and assures the younger hadjis--expectant that the old masters are old
humbugs, and that it is generally understood to be so now in France--you
can get better pictures at half price any day in the shops. It will not
do. The art of small details, the art of pieces and bits, went out with
the last architecture. It went over to the people, and from them a
higher Art will yet bloom again in a beauty, a freshness, and grandeur
never before dreamed of. It will live again in Nature. For it is towards
Nature that progress tends--towards real beauty, and not towards the
false 'ideal.'
Yet so clearly and beautifully as social progress is defined for us in
history--so indisputably distinct as are the outlines in which it rises
before us, there are no lack of men to believe that humanity was never
so agonized as at present, never so wicked. 'Our cities are more badly
governed than were ever cities before,'--'look at the Lobby'--everything
is bad. Ah, it moves slowly, no doubt, this progress--and yet it does
move. Across rumors and lies and discouraging truths it ever
moves,--moves with the worlds through seas of light, but, unlike the
worlds, goes not back again to the point of starting. And why should it
not be slow, this progress, when an Egypt could lie four thousand years
in one type of civilization, when an India could believe itself millions
of ages old? Slowly the locomotive gets under way. Long are the first
intervals of its piston, long the wheezing sounds of its first breaths.
But puff, puff, they come, and ever a little faster. Do we not 'make
history rapidly in these days,' since England and France have entered on
their modern career? What place has the nineteenth century in the long
list of ages?
Everywhere the action of capital, the ringing of the plane, now and
then, as in those times, the sound of arms, but all tending to far other
ends than the welfare of a reigning family, or to satisfy the revengeful
whim of a royal mistress, or the bigotry of a monarch. Public opinion
has its say now in all things. Even the rascality of which the
conservative complains is individual rascality for private aims,
tempered by public opinion, and no longer the sublimely organized
rascality of all power and government. Do these things prove nothing? Do
they not show that WORK--good, hard, steady, unflinching
work--is enlarging man's destiny, and freeing itself step by step from
the primeval curse?
It is only during the present century and within the memory of man that
in France and Russia the welfare of the people has become the steady
object of diplomacy, and this because any other object would now be
ruinous. But it is chiefly in America that the most wonderful advance
has been made, and it is here, and at the present moment, that the most
tremendous struggle has arisen between the adherents of the old faith
and the new. In the South, the old feudal baron under a new name, in the
North the man of labor and of science, fight again the battle of might
and right--the one strong in ignorance, the other stronger in knowledge.
Who can doubt what the end thereof shall be? Amid storms and darkness,
through death and hell-carnivals, the great truth has ever held its way
onwards, slowly, for its heritage is eternal Time, but oh! how surely.
And yet there be those who doubt the end and the issue! Doubt--oh, never
doubt! For this faith all martyrs have died, in this battle all men
have, knowingly or unknowingly, lived--they who fought against it fought
for it--for of a verity there was never yet on earth one active deed
done which tended not towards the great advance, and to bring on the
great jubilee of Freedom.
THE EDWARDS FAMILY.
Among the surviving octogenarians of New York and its vicinity, there
are few of such interesting reminiscence as one who is passing an
honored old age at his residence on Staten Island. Those who live in
Port Richmond will have anticipated his name, and will perceive at once
that we refer to the Hon. Ogden Edwards. Judge Edwards is of an ancient
and noble stock, being grandson of the author of the treatise on the
_Freedom of the Will_. The family emigrated from England with the first
colony of the Puritans, having previously to this suffered persecution
in one of its members. This man--a minister--had an only son, who became
the founder of a line illustrious for genius and piety. The latter of
these traits was illustrated in the lives of both Daniel Edwards, of
Hartford, and his son Timothy, who was for sixty years pastor of the
church at Windsor, but in the person of Jonathan Edwards we see the
outcropping of genius. He was the son of Timothy, and followed his
father's profession in an obscure New England village, whose meadows
were washed by the waters of the Connecticut.
Jonathan Edwards, during a life of close study, developed one of the
clearest and most powerful intellects which was ever united to so rare a
degree of patience and humility. In that day of small things it could
hardly have been dreamed that the Puritan preacher, who for a quarter of
a century filled the Northampton pulpit, would ever rank among the
giants of intellect. At the distance of one hundred years no name is
more powerfully felt in the theology of America than his, while in
metaphysics, and in the sphere of pure thought, his position, like that
of Shakspeare in literature, is one of enviable greatness. This man is
not to be confounded with his son of the same name, who, though of
distinguished ability, was far from equaling his father; both, however,
were academic presidents, the one of Nassau Hall, at Princeton, the
other of Union College; to which it may be added that Dwight, grandson
of the first, was for many years the honored president of Yale. Judge
Edwards is the son of Pierrepont Edwards, who was bred at Stockbridge,
among the Indians. Here his father labored as missionary, having been
driven from his parish by an ill-disposed people, many of whom were, it
may be, like the Athenian of old, who was tired of hearing Aristides
called 'the Just.'
While laboring at Stockbridge, in the midst of poverty and privation,
Jonathan Edwards wrote the treatise on the Freedom of the Will, the
greatest of all existing polemics. A portion of the old parsonage
remains in the village, and there are still shown marks and scratches on
the wall, made by him, as it is said, in the night, to recall by
daylight the abstruse meditations of his wakeful hours.
The children learned the Indian tongue, and when Pierrepont Edwards was
established at New Haven, the old sachems used to visit the
boy-companion of their early days, when the pipe of peace was smoked in
his kitchen in ancient form.
Having studied law with Judge Reeve of Litchfield, who married Edwards's
niece, the only sister of Aaron Burr, he became highly distinguished in
his profession. It is said, indeed, that Alexander Hamilton pronounced
him the most eloquent man to whom he had ever listened. Pierrepont
Edwards bore the name of his mother's family, an old English stock,
which reckons its descent from the days of the Conqueror. The
Pierreponts dwelt near Newstead Abbey, the seat of Byron, and not far
from Sherwood Forest, the home of Robin Hood and his merry men of old.
The name of Sarah Pierrepont, wife of Jonathan Edwards, is still fresh
in honored memory for wisdom and piety. She rests by her husband's side,
among the tombs of the presidents of Nassau Hall, in Princeton cemetery,
and is the only female name in that array of the mighty dead. It was
once suggested that these remains should be conveyed to Northampton, but
this was refused. Having banished this pair after the service of a
quarter of a century, it was not meet to grant to that place the honor
of their graves, and hence of the whole family but one rests at
Northampton. This is Jerusha, a lovely girl of seventeen, of whom it is
recorded by her father, in the simple terms of primitive piety, that she
said on her death-bed that 'she had not seen one minute for several
years wherein she desired to live one minute longer for the sake of any
other good in life, but doing good and living to the glory of God.' A
cenotaph has been placed by her grave to the memory of her father, but
it can not wipe away the error of the past, and this expression of
regret only recalls a biting line from Childe Harold:
'Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar.'
Pierrepont Edwards was the government attorney during the Revolution,
and prosecuted the confiscation of tory estates. When Benedict Arnold
became a traitor his property was at once seized, and his homestead at
Norwich, and all its contents, were confiscated. The pecuniary value of
this seizure was small, since Arnold's wasteful habits forbade any
increase of wealth, but there was his dwelling, and the little store,
with its uncouth sign, 'B. Arnold,' in which in his early day he had
carried on a petty trade. In Arnold's house were found large quantities
of papers, both of a private and public character. Among the former were
certain letters to his first wife, which we have read, and from which we
learned that her life was embittered by his habits of neglect and
dissipation. In one of these he alludes to a winter trip to Canada, with
a sleigh-load of whisky, on speculation. It is possible that this
journey prompted that grand expedition in which the whisky merchant
figured as a military leader. How strange the contrast between the
lonely pedlar, dealing out strong drink in the streets of Quebec, and
the victorious chieftain who, in company with Montgomery, attacked its
citadel! Some of these domestic letters contain confessions made to an
outraged wife, of a character too disgusting for recital. They show a
reach of depravity, which, considering those primitive times, in the
land of steady habits, was indeed strange. They prove that for years
Arnold had been rotten at heart, and that his treason, like that of
Floyd, arose from no sudden temptation, but was the end toward which his
whole life had been tending. It seemed impossible that such a man could
die without achieving infamy in some new and wondrous way. After reading
these revelations of domestic treachery, we need not be surprised at the
cool perfidy exhibited at West Point. Who but a monster of treason could
have penned the papers found in André's boot? Thus, 'No. 3, a slight
wood work--_very dry_--no bomb proof--a single abattis--no cannon--_the
work easily set on fire_.' 'No. 4, a wooden work about 10 feet high--no
bomb proof--2 six-pounders--a slight abattis.' 'North redoubt--stone
work 4 feet high--above the stone, wood filled in with earth--_very
dry_--bomb proof--no ditch--3 batteries within the fort--a poor
abattis--_the work easily fired with faggots dipped in pitch_.' We quote
the above, from the André papers in the State Library, to show the
culmination of a life morally base, and whose only redeeming feature,
_courage_, was rather the nerve of a desperado.
The Arnold papers were for years in Judge Edwards's possession, and the
more valuable of them have been presented by him to the New York
Historical Society. As Arnold was fully aware of the character of his
papers, it is possible that, connected with his bloody foray upon the
shores of Connecticut, there was a desire to repossess such adverse
testimony.
Pierrepont Edwards died in 1825, having lived to see his son filling the
station of Circuit Judge upon the New York bench, where he remained
until his sixtieth year.
Those who have ever visited Judge Edwards at his seat at Port Richmond,
will not soon forget the pleasant flow of conversation which brings out
the incidents of the past. Such a man's life is a series of valuable
reminiscences, weaving together the men and manners of generations both
past and present. Judge Edwards commenced the practice of the law in New
York in 1800, at the early age of nineteen. His progress was marked by
rapid promotion, and he was at once accorded a high rank in that galaxy
which clustered around the bar. At that time Hamilton was in the
fullness of his glory, and his opulent style was set off by the concise
and pungent oratory of Burr, who was likewise in his prime. De Witt
Clinton was developing that breadth of intellect which afterward made
him the pride of New York, and was about to take his seat in the State
Senate. It was an era remarkable for brilliance of wit and eloquence, as
well as for fierce political strife. The duel was a common method of
settling disputes among lawyers and politicians, and few men then
entered the political arena who were not good shots. Looking back to
this distant point, one is astonished at the simplicity of those
beginnings which have ended in colossal greatness. The vast landed
estates which now acknowledge lordly owners were then only in
inception. The Lenox estate was a range of wild land, far away even from
the suburbs of the city, and owned by a plain, plodding merchant, whose
son is the munificent and benevolent James Lenox, of whom New York may
be justly proud. A strong-minded German of unpolished aspect, and with
something of a foreign accent, kept a fur store at the corner of Pearl
and Pine Streets, and displayed upon his sign the name of John Jacob
Astor. He was then buying up from time to time pieces of land in the
vicinity of the city, and the advance of price has at length rendered
his estate the most valuable in America.
Turning to literary matters, one might have found Washington Irving
reading law in Wall Street, and little dreaming of the fame which
awaited his advancing years. Such are among the changes which the
retrospect of a long life affords. Among the events which marked Judge
Edwards's advent to New York was the fearful duel between Burr and
Hamilton. Burr and Edwards were cousins, but the former was more than
twenty years the senior, and the blow which he received could not but be
felt by the young attorney. However, their friendship remained unbroken
through life, and Edwards watched over the unfortunate old man during
his declining years. Burr in his better days owned an estate nearly
equal to those just referred to, and one which, had he retained it,
would have rendered him immensely rich; but, although not a wasteful
man, yet his schemes were of a ruinous character, and his property in
due time fell into the hands of Astor. In fact, no one could be on
friendly terms with Burr without suffering pecuniarily, since his powers
of persuasion were beyond refusal. No man had ever been known in America
with such fascinating address, and such plausible schemes for carrying
out some great enterprise, which, however great, must perish for the
lack of endorsing a note, whose payment, of course, one would not expect
him to trouble himself with. In his latter days, when all his schemes
had exploded, and when his moral character was ruined, and men shunned
him as though he were an object of dread, Burr found a friend in his
cousin, Ogden Edwards. The one had ascended in popular favor as the
other had sunk, and now sat as Circuit Judge of New York. Burr was
shattered by paralysis, and being nearly helpless, was removed to a
house at Port Richmond, where he received every attention. His pension
as colonel in the Continental army gave him a limited support, and his
friends clung to him to the last. Much interest was felt to ascertain
his views in respect to religion, or at least as to whether any change
had taken place since the approach of age. On this point, however, he
would not converse, and it is supposed that the infidelity of his early
years remained unchanged. He died perfectly conscious, and appeared
desirous of communicating something to a son of Judge Edwards, who
attended him, but was unable to speak.
Burr was buried at Princeton with military honors. His father and
grandfather lie in the row of college presidents, and his grave was made
just opposite theirs, leaving only room for a path between. That spot
contained the remains of his parents and grandparents, who died in his
childhood. Seventy-eight years had passed away since they had fallen
asleep, and during that interval not a member of the family had been
buried there. For some years Burr's grave was without a stone. At last,
a plain but elegant slab of Italian marble was placed at its head. The
inscription is simple, yet one can not but start when for the first time
he reads that name of thrilling memories. It has been said that the
monument was placed there by some mysterious lady, and this romantic
statement has gone the rounds of the press. This, however, is incorrect;
it was the work of the Edwardses, a family which not only watched over
the last years of the unfortunate man, but thus honored his grave.[3]
Among the interesting trials which have occurred under Judge Edwards's
jurisdiction, we may mention the famous conspiracy case, in which Jacob
Barker, Mathew L. Davis and Henry Eckford were jointly indicted for
conspiracy. The object of this conspiracy was to break several of the
city banks, and the trial excited intense interest throughout the Union.
The parties were convicted, but carried the case up to the Court of
Error, and at last escaped. Hugh Maxwell, who was prosecuting attorney
at the time, received a service of plate from the merchants of New York
as an acknowledgment of his faithfulness in so important a cause.
Another case, which is still remembered for its dramatic interest and
for its thrilling details, was that of the notorious Richard P.
Robinson. We doubt if any murder case has ever occurred in our country
which brought up so many new points to embarrass the bench, or in which
that bench bore a higher responsibility.
Robinson was a youth of nineteen, but recently from Connecticut, and was
a clerk in the reputable jobbing house of Joseph Hoxie. He was arrested
early in the morning at his boarding house in Dey Street, and aroused
from a sound sleep, under a charge of murder. The victim was an
unfortunate woman, who was found slain in her bed, in a disreputable
house in Thomas Street, and who had obtained an escape from youthful
misery by the hand of an unknown assassin. But under what name should
that assassin be found? It was undeniable that the prisoner had been one
of her intimates, but was the crime limited to himself alone? Had he
partners in the deed? Was he implicated at all? Was not he wholly
innocent of the murder, and only guilty of an unfortunate acquaintance?
These were the questions which surrounded the case. It is twenty-four
years since the trial absorbed and excited the American public, and at
this distance we can not but review the matter as one of singular
interest, while the question of guilt is not yet wholly solved. In this
point it resembles the affair known as the Mary Rogers mystery, which
four years afterward thrilled New York with fresh horror.
This case attracted the genius of Edgar A. Poe, who was then elaborating
those complex tales into whose labyrinths he leads the trembling reader,
until, when he almost feels himself lost, the clue suddenly brings him
to daylight and to upper air. Poe founded upon this terrible tragedy the
tale of Marié Roget, in which he effects a plausible solution of the
question of guilt. Why did he not also solve that question, equally
perplexing, as to who murdered Ellen Jewett? The deed was committed with
a hatchet, and as this was proved to have belonged to Hoxie's store, it
was a strong proof of Robinson's guilt; but this was rebutted by the
assertion that it had been used only to open a trunk, for the purpose of
recovering a portrait and sundry gifts,--an act which by no means
involved the further crime of murder. Whoever had committed the deed had
attempted to hide it by arson, and had fired the bedding by a lighted
candle, but a timely discovery had avoided this danger.
Robinson's defence was conducted by Ogden Hoffman, whose acknowledged
eloquence rendered him the most desirable of advocates, and he proved
himself worthy of the expectation reposed in him. Who that heard can
forget his appeals in behalf of _the poor boy_, which moved the audience
to tears, and shook even the equanimity of the jury? The main strength
of the defence lay in charging the deed upon the keeper of the house,
Rosina Townsend, who was in debt to the murdered girl for such a sum as
would make her death desirable. The trial continued two weeks; the
interest increased in intensity, and the public were canvassing
testimony as fast as it was published, as though life and death to
thousands hinged upon the verdict. At last, as a conclusion to all other
testimony, Hoffman produced a witness who established an alibi. At
twelve o'clock at night word was given that the jury had agreed. The
court was opened at that late hour, the prisoner confronted with the
jury, and an acquittal pronounced. The prisoner flushed, turned pale,
and then sunk to his seat, while Hoffman caught him to his arms, and the
aged father became convulsed with sobbing emotion.
Whatever may have been the mystery enshrouding this tragedy, we have
long been satisfied as to Robinson's guilt, and we believe that it is
now admitted that the alibi was but a bold stroke of well-paid perjury.
Robinson became a wanderer and died in Texas, and Rosina Townsend,
having abandoned her infamous career, led a reformed life for some
years, and died recently, at Cattskill, in the communion of the church.
Hoffman, too, is no more; and, as the old court-house and Bridewell,
which stood in the Park, have been torn down, naught remains to recall
the tragedy but the house where it occurred. Even this exhibits proof of
the changes of time, and now, expurgated of its early shame, one may
find 41 Thomas Street serving the honest purpose of a carpenter's shop.
Among the chief objects of curious interest which adorn Judge Edwards's
residence, are the family portraits. Here we may look upon the
lineaments of the great metaphysician, exhibiting the calm simplicity of
greatness. A fitting companion to this is found in Sarah, his wife. As
one gazes upon it he can not help admiring the serene beauty of her who
softened the stern Puritanism of her age by all the graces of life, and
whose beauty of person was set off by a still higher beauty of
character. In contrast with these is the fine portrait of their
unfortunate grandson, and his daughter, almost as unfortunate, from the
pencil of Vanderleyn. The countenance of the first of these is full of
life,--the brilliant eye eloquent with power, and the whole features
instinct with that strange and fascinating beauty for which Burr was
famed. That of Theodosia has a noble bust draped after the antique, and
the superb hauteur which pervades her features would have made Cleopatra
proud. Yet, under all this there is an expression of girlish loveliness
and tender affection, which proved a true heart. No wonder that both
Burr and Allston worshiped at the shrine of parental and conjugal love,
united as they were in such a one, or that, when she was lost at sea,
the one felt the curse scathing him with hopeless desolation, while the
other went heart-broken to an early grave.
SONNET.
This age may not behold it; we may lie
Sepultured and forgotten, and the mold
Of e'er-renewing earth may first enfold
New matter to its bosom, and the sky
New nations arch beneath its canopy,
Ere this misshapen thing, the world, be rolled
And sphered to perfect freedom, ere the old
Incrusted statutes that our God defy
Be crushed in its rotation, and those die
That lived defiance through them. Then man's gold
No more shall manhood buy, or men be sold
For pottage messes. We may not be nigh
To see the glory, but if true and bold
Our hands may haste what others shall behold.
THE GREEN-CORN DANCE.
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED MS. BY JOHN HOWARD PAYNE, AUTHOR OF "HOME, SWEET
HOME"
[The following letter was written by the late JOHN HOWARD
PAYNE to a relative in New York, in 1835. The Green-Corn Dance
which it describes was, it is believed, the last ever celebrated by
the Creeks east of the Arkansas. Soon after, they were removed to
the West, where they now are.]
MACON, GEORGIA, ----, 1835.
MY DEAR ----.
... I have been among the Indians for a few days lately. Shall I tell
you about them? You make no answer, and silence gives consent;--so I
will tell you about the Indians.
The State of Alabama, you may remember, has been famous as the abode of
the Creek Indians, always regarded as the most warlike of the southern
tribes. If you will look over the map of Alabama, you will find, on the
west side of it, nearly parallel with the State of Mississippi, two
rivers,--one the Coosa and the other the Talapoosa,--which, descending,
unite in the Alabama. Nearly opposite to these, about one hundred miles
across, you will find another river,--the Chatahoochie, which also
descends to form, with certain tributaries, the Apalachicola. It is
within the space bounded by these rivers, and especially at the upper
part of it, that the Creeks now retain a sort of sovereignty. The United
States have in vain attempted to force the Creeks to volunteer a
surrender of their soil for compensation. A famous chief among them made
a treaty a few years ago to that effect; but the nation arose against
him, surrounded his house, ordered his family out, and bade him appear
at the door after all but he had departed. He did so. He was shot dead,
and the house burned. The treaty only took effect in part, if at all.
Perpetual discontents have ensued. The United States have assumed a sort
of jurisdiction over the territory, leaving the Creeks unmolested in
their national habits and their property, with this exception in their
favor, beyond all other tribes but the Cherokees,--they have the right,
if they wish to sell, to sell to individuals, at their own prices, but
are not bound to treat with the republic at a settled rate,--which last
mode of doing business they rather properly looked upon as giving them
the appearance of a vanquished race, and subject to the dictation of
conquerors. So, what the diplomatists could not achieve was forthwith
attempted by speculators;--and among those the everlasting Yankee began
to appear, and the Indian independence straightway began to disappear.
Certain forms were required by government to give Americans a claim to
these Creek lands. The purchaser was to bring the Indian before a
government agent;--in the agent's presence, the Indian was to declare
what his possessions were, and for how much he would sell them;--the
money was paid in presence of the agent, who gave a certificate, which,
when countersigned by the President, authorized the purchaser to demand
protection from the national arms, if molested. All this was well
enough; but it was soon discovered that the speculators would hire
miscreants and drunken Indians to personate the real possessors of
lands, and, having paid them the money, would take it back as soon as
the purchase was completed, give the Indian a jug of whiskey, or a small
bag of silver, for the fraud, and so become lords of the soil. Great
dissatisfaction arose, and lives were lost. An anonymous letter opened
the eyes of government. The white speculators were so desperate and
dangerous that any other mode of information was unsafe. Investigators
were appointed to examine into the validity of Creek sales, and the
examiners met at the time I went to witness a great Indian religious
festival, concerning which I will inform you presently; for it was by my
curiosity to view this relic of their remotest times that the visit
among the Indians, alluded to in the beginning of my letter, was
prompted. It has been necessary for me to be thus prolix, to make you
understand the nature of the society--and a sort of danger too--by
which we were surrounded. On one side, white rogues--border
cutthroats--contending, through corrupted red men, for the possessions
of those among them, who, though honest, are unwary. On another side,
the cheated Indian-robber of his brethren, wheedled by some fresh white
cheat into a promise to sell (payable in over-charged goods) at a higher
price to the last comer, on condition of the latter individual getting
the earlier inadequate sale set aside by the agent of the United States,
through evidence from its pretended victim that the payment for it had
only been nominal, and was forthwith fradulently withdrawn. Even the
judges are accused of being, covertly, sometimes as bad as any of the
rest, and it is said that instances are not unknown wherein some of them
have, not long after withdrawing from the seat of justice, proved to be
full of wealth in lands, which could only be accounted for by a supposed
collusion with accusers who have supplied them with pretexts for
cancelling prior sales by Indians in favor of better offers, when
contrasted with the preceding ones, though offers really amounting to
nothing at all in comparison with the true worth of the purchase. Amid
these scenes of complicated villany, it is not unusual, after the
session of a commission representing the United States for trying the
validity of titles, to see a foiled thief rush at the successful
overreaching one, with fist and bowie-knife; and it is then accounted a
case of uncommon good luck if either live to look upon what both have
stolen from the red-man, and one not only from the red-man, but the
white.
I beheld a fine, gentle, innocent-looking girl,--a widow, I
believe,--come up to the investigator to assert that she had never sold
her land. She had been counterfeited by some knave. The Investigator's
court was a low bar-room. He saw me eyeing him, and some one told him I
was travelling to take notes. He did not know but government had
employed me as a secret supervisor. He seemed to shrink, and postponed a
decision. I have since heard that he is a rascal of the sort at which I
have just hinted.
The ill-starred red people here are entirely at the mercy of
interpreters, who, if not negro-slaves of their own, are half-breeds,--a
worse set, generally, than the worst of either slaves or knaves. In the
jargon of the border, they are called _linkisters_,--some say because
they form, by interpreting, a _link_ between the Indian nations and
ours; but I should rather regard the word as a mere corruption of
_linguist_.
The Indians become more easily deluded by the borderers than by others,
because the borderers know that they never esteem any one to be
substantial who does not keep a shop. So your rascal of the frontier
sets up a shop, and is pronounced a _sneezer_. If his shop be large, he
is a _sneezer-chubco_; if larger than any other, he is a
_sneezer-chubco-mico_. But, in any of his grades, a _sneezer_ is always
considered as a personage by no means to be sneezed at. The _sneezer_
will pay for land in goods, and thinks himself very honest if he charges
his goods at five hundred times their worth, and can make it appear by
his account against the Indian's claim that he has paid him thousands of
dollars, when in fact he may scarcely have paid him hundreds of cents.
Well! So much for the beautiful state of our national legislation and
morals, as civilizers and protectors of the red-men. It is time for me
to relieve you from these details, so uncomplimentary to us of the
superior order, and to tell you something about the famous religious
festival which took me amongst the Indians, and thereby caused, the
foregoing first preamble,--the ennui produced by which I proceed to
cure, like a quack doctor, _by doubling the dose_. Accordingly, here
comes a second preamble, by way of introductory explanation of what is
to come at last.
The festival in question is called the Green-Corn Festival. All the
nation assemble for its celebration at a place set apart for the
purpose, as the Temple at Jerusalem was for the religious assemblages of
all the Jewish tribes. It has been kept by the Creeks, and many other
Indian nations,--indeed, perhaps, by the entire race,--from time
immemorial. It is prepared for, as well as fulfilled with, great form
and solemnity.
When the green corn is ripe, the Creeks seem to begin their year. Until
after the religious rites of the festival with which their New Year is
ushered in, it is considered as an infamy to taste the corn. On the
approach of the season, there is a meeting of the chiefs of all the
towns forming any particular clan. First, an order is given out for the
manufacture of certain articles of pottery to be employed in the
ceremonies. A second meeting gives out a second order. New matting is to
be prepared for the seats of the assembly. There is a third meeting. A
vast number of sticks are broken into parts, and then put up in
packages, each containing as many sticks as there are days intervening
previous to the one appointed for the gathering of the clans. Runners
are sent with these. One is flung aside every day by each receiver.
Punctually, on the last day, all, with their respective families, are at
the well-known rendezvous.
That you may the more clearly understand the whole matter, I will so
anticipate my story as to put you in possession of many essential
particulars concerning the place set apart by the Creeks for gathering
their people to the festival in question. This will provide you with the
unexpected gratification of even a third preamble, as an explanatory
avenue extra to the main subject.
The chosen spot is remote from any habitations, and consists of an ample
square, with four large log houses, each one forming a side of the
square, at every angle of which there is a broad opening into the area.
The houses are of logs and clay, and a sort of wicker-work, with
sharp-topped, sloping roofs, like those of our log houses, but more
thoroughly finished. The part of the houses fronting the square is
entirely open. Their interior consists of a broad platform from end to
end, raised a little more than knee-high, and so curved and inclined as
to form a most comfortable place for either sitting or lying. It is
covered with the specially-prepared cane matting, which descends in
front of it to the ground. A space is left open along the entire back of
each house, to afford a free circulation of air. It starts from about
the hight of my thin, so that I could peep in from the outside through
the whole of each structure, and obtain a clear view of all that was
going on. Attached to every house towers a thick, notched mast. Behind,
the angle of one of the four broad entrances to the square, rises a
high, cone-roofed building, circular and dark, with an entrance down an
inclined plane, through a low door. Its interior was so obscured that I
could not make out what it contained; but some one said it was a
council-house. I occupied one corner of an outer square, next to the one
I have already described, two sides of which outer square were formed by
thick corn-fields, a third by a raised embankment apparently for
spectators, and a fourth by the back of one of the buildings before
mentioned. In the center of this outer square was a very high circular
mound. This, it seems, was formed from the earth accumulated yearly by
removing the surface of the sacred square thither. At every Green-Corn
Festival, the sacred square is strewn with soil yet untrodden; the soil
of the year preceding being taken away, but preserved as above
explained. No stranger's foot is allowed to press the new earth of the
sacred square until its consecration is complete. A gentleman told me
that he and a friend chanced once to stroll along through the edge, just
after the new soil had been laid. A friendly chief saw him and
remonstrated, and seemed greatly incensed. He explained that it was
done in ignorance. The chief was pacified, but nevertheless caused every
spot which had been polluted by their unhallowed steps to be uptorn, and
a fresh covering substituted.
The sacred square being ready, every fire in the towns under the
jurisdiction of the head chief is, at the same moment, extinguished.
Every house must also at that moment have been newly swept and washed.
Enmities are forgotten. If a person under sentence for a crime can steal
in unobserved and appear among the worshippers when their exercises
begin, his crime is no more remembered. The first ceremonial is to light
the new fire of the year. A square board is brought, with a small
circular hollow in the center. It receives the dust of a forest tree, or
of dry leaves. Five chiefs take turns to whirl the stick, until the
friction produces a flame. From this sticks are lighted and conveyed to
every house throughout the tribe. The original flame is taken to the
center of the sacred square. Wood is heaped there, and a strong fire
lighted. Over this fire the holy vessels of new-made pottery are placed.
Drinking-gourds, with long handles, are set around on a bench. Appointed
officers keep up an untiring surveillance over the whole, never moving
from the spot; and here what they call the black drink is brewed, with
many forms and with intense solemnity.
Now, then, having rendered you, by these numerous prefaces, much better
informed about the Creek Jerusalem and its paraphernalia than I was when
I got there, I will proceed with my travel story, just as if I had not
enabled you to ponder all that I saw so much more understandingly than I
myself did.
* * * * *
I cannot describe to you my feelings when I first found myself in the
Indian country. We rode miles after miles in the native forest, seeing
neither habitation nor an inhabitant to disturb the solitude and majesty
of the wilderness. At length we met a native in his native land. He was
galloping on horseback. His air was oriental;--he had a turban, a robe
of fringed and gaudily-figured calico, scarlet leggings, and beaded
belts and garters and pouch. We asked how far it was to the Square. He
held up a finger, and we understood him to mean one mile. Next we met
two Indian women on horseback, laden with water-melons. In answer to our
question of the road, they half covered a finger, to express that it was
half a mile further, and, smiling, added,'_sneezer_--_much_,' meaning
that we should find lots of our brethren, the sneezers, there, to keep
us company. We passed groups of Indian horses tied in the shade, with
cords long enough to let them graze freely. We then saw the American
flag--a gift from the government--floating over one of the hut-tops in
the square. We next passed numbers of visitors' horses and carriages,
and servants, and under the heels of one horse a drunken vagabond
Indian, or half-Indian, asleep. And, finally, we found ourselves at the
corner of the sacred square, where the aborigines were in the midst of
their devotions.
As soon as I left the carriage, seeing an elevation just outside of one
of the open corners of the sacred square, whence a clear view could be
obtained of what was going on within, I took my station there. I was
afterwards told that this mound was composed of ashes which had been
produced during many preceding years by such fires as were now blazing
in the center; and that ashes of the sort are never permitted to be
scattered, but must thus be gathered up, and carefully and religiously
preserved.
Before the solemnities begin,--and, some one said, though I am not sure
it was on good authority, ere new earth is placed,--the women dance in
the sacred square, and entirely by themselves. I missed seeing this.
They then separate from the men, and remain apart from them until after
the fasting and other religious forms are gone through, when they have
ceremonies of their own, of which I shall speak in due course.
As I gazed from my stand upon the corner mound, the sacred square
presented a most striking scene. Upon each of the notched masts, of
which I have already spoken as attached to each of the structures
within, was a stack of tall canes, hung all over with feathers, black
and white. There were rude paint-daubs about the posts and roof-beams of
the open house-fronts, and here and there they were festooned with gourd
vines. Chiefs were standing around, the sides and corners, alone, and
opposite to each other, their eyes riveted on the earth, and motionless
as statues. Every building was filled with crowds of silent
Indians,--those on the back rows seated in the Turkish fashion, but
those in front with their feet to the ground. All were turbaned, all
fantastically painted, all in dresses varying in ornament but alike in
wildness. One chief wore a tall black hat, with a broad, massive silver
band around it, and a peacock's feather; another had a silver scull-cap,
with a deep silver bullion fringe down to his eyebrows, and plates of
silver from his breast to his knee, descending his tunic. Most of them
had the eagle plume, which only those may wear who have slain a foe;
numbers sported military plumes in various positions about their
turbans; and one had a tremendous tuft of black feathers declining from
the back of his head over his back; while another's head was all shaven
smooth, excepting a tuft across the center from the back to the front,
like the crest of a helmet.
I never saw an assembly more absorbed with what they regarded as the
solemnities of the occasion.
The first sounds I heard were a strange low, deep wail,--a sound of many
voices drawn out in perfect unison, and only dying away with the breath
itself, which indeed was longer sustained than could be done by any
singer I ever yet heard. This was followed by a second wail, in the same
style, but shrill, like the sound of musical glasses, and giving a
similar shiver to the nerves. And after a third wail in another key, the
statue-like figures moved and formed two diagonal lines opposite to each
other, their backs to opposite angles of the square. One by one, they
then approached the huge bowls in which the black drink was boiling,
and, in rotation, dipped a gourd, and took, with a most reverential
expression, a long, deep draught each. The next part of the ceremony
with them was somewhat curious; but the rapt expression of the
worshippers took away the effect which such an evolution would be apt to
produce on a fastidious stomach if connected with an uninterested head.
In short, these dignitaries, without moving a muscle of the face, or a
joint of the body, after a few seconds, and with great solemnity,
ejected what had been swallowed upon the ground. It seemed as if given
forth in the spirit of a libation among the ancients. The chiefs having
afterwards tasted, each replacing the gourd, and returning to his stand
before the next came forward, they all went to their seats, and two old
men approached and handed round gourds full to the other parties present
who had remained stationary. The looks on each side were as full of
solemn awe as I have ever seen at any Christian ceremony; and certainly
the awe was more universal than usually pervades our churches.
This done, a chief made a speech, but without rising. It was listened to
with profound attention, and in one place, at a pause, called forth a
very unanimous and emphatic shout of approbation,--a long sound,
seemingly of two syllables, but uttered by all in the same breath. I
asked a professed _linkister_ what the speech was about; but he was
either indifferent or ignorant, for he only replied that it was an
appeal to them not to forsake their ancient ceremonies, but to remain
faithful in their fulfilment to the last, and that it wound up with a
sort of explanatory dissertation upon the forms which were to follow.
One chief then walked round, and, in short, abrupt sentences, seemed to
give directions; whereupon some whitened, entire gourds, with long
handles, and apparently filled with pebbles, were produced; and men took
their stations with them on mats, while those who had been seated all
arose, and formed in circles around the fire, led by a chief, and always
beginning their movement towards the left. The gourds were
shaken;--there arose a sort of low sustained chant as the procession
went on; and it was musical enough, but every few seconds, at regular
intervals, a sound was thrown in by all the dancers, in chorus, like the
sharp, quick, shrill yelp of a dog. The dance seemed to bear reference
to the fires in the center. Every time they came to a particular part of
the square, first the head chief turned and uplifted his hands over the
flame, as if invoking a benediction, and all the people followed his
example in rotation. The dance was very unlike anything I ever saw
before. The dancers never crossed their feet, but first gave two taps
each with the heel and toe of one foot, then of the other, making a step
forward as each foot was tapped on the earth; their bodies all the while
stately and erect, and each, with a feather fan,--their universal and
indispensable companion,--fanning himself, and keeping time with his fan
as he went on. The dance was quickened, at a signal, till it became
nearly a measured run, and the cries of the dancers were varied to suit
the motion, when, suddenly, all together uttered a long, shrill whoop,
and stopped short, some few remaining as guards about the sacred square,
but most of the throng forthwith rushing down a steep, narrow ravine,
canopied with foliage, to the river, into which they plunged; and the
stream was black on every side with their heads as they swam about,
playing all sorts of antics; the younger ones diving to fetch up pieces
of silver money which the visitors flung into the water, to put their
dexterity to the test.
Returning to the sacred square, they went through other dances around
the fire, varying in figure and accompaniment. All were generally led by
some aged chief, who uttered a low, broken sound, to which the others
responded in chorus. Sometimes the leader, as he went around, would
ejaculate a feeble, tremulous exclamation, like allelu_liah_,
allelu_liah_, laying the stress upon the last syllable, to which all
would respond in perfect accord, and with a deep, sonorous bass,
'allelu_liah_,' and the same alternation continued to the close, which
was invariably sudden, and after a long general whoop.
Each dance seemed to have a special form and significance;--one in
particular, where the dancers unstacked the tall canes with feathers
suspended from them, each taking one from the mast sustaining it; and
this one, I was told, meant to immortalize triumphs won at ball-plays.
The feathered canes are seized as markers of points gained by the
bearers in the ball-play, which is the main trial of strength and skill
among rival clans of the same tribe, in friendship, and even between
tribe and tribe, when in harmony. The effect of these canes and
feathers, as they glanced around, with an exulting chorus, was very
inspiriting, and the celebrants became almost wild with their delight as
it drew near its climax, ending their closing whoop with a general laugh
of triumphant recollection.
Other dances were represented as alluding to conquests over bears and
panthers, and even the buffalo, which last memorial is remarkable
enough, having among them survived all traces of the buffalo itself.
But, excepting these vague hints, I could not find any bystander capable
of giving me a further explanation of any point on which I inquired,
than that it was 'an old custom;' or, if they wished to be more
explicit, with a self-satisfied air, they would gravely remark that it
was 'the green-corn dance,'--which I knew as well as they. Could I have
been instructed even in their phrases and speeches, I might have made
valuable conjectures. But even their language, on these occasions,
seems, by their own admission, beyond the learning of the
'_linkisters_.' It is a poetical, mystical idiom, varying essentially
from that of trading and of familiar intercommunication, and utterly
incomprehensible to the literal minds of mere trafficking explainers.
Even were it otherwise, the persons hovering upon the frontier most
ingenuously own, when pressed for interpretations of Indian customs,
that they care nothing for the Indians excepting to get their lands, and
that they really consider all study concerning them as egregious folly,
save only that of finding out how much cotton their grounds will yield,
and in what way the greatest speculations can be accomplished with the
smallest capital.
The last of the ceremonies of the day consisted of a sort of trial of
fortitude upon the young.
Old chiefs were seated at the back of the council-house, and of the four
houses of the square. They had sharp instruments,--sail-needles, awls,
and flints. Children of from four to twelve, and youths, and young men,
presented their limbs, and the instrument was plunged into the thighs
and the calves of the legs, and drawn down in long, straight lines. As
the blood streamed, the wounded would scoop it up with bark or sticks,
and dash it against the back of the building; and all the building thus
became clotted with gore. The glory of the exercise seemed to be to
submit without flinching, without even consciousness. The youngest
children would sometimes show the most extraordinary self-control. All
offered themselves to the experiment voluntarily. If a shudder were
detected, the old chiefs gashed deeper. But where they saw entire
firmness, an involuntary glow of admiration would flit over their stony
faces.
We now left, and went to an infant town--and a savage infant it
seemed--over the river to break our fast,--an indulgence which to our
Indian friends is not permitted. They may neither eat nor sleep until
the ceremonies close. The town we went to is named Talassee. It has but
about a dozen houses as yet, but is delightfully situated, and I should
not wonder to see a large place there in another twelvemonth. It belongs
to the region of a clan different from the one we left, though part of
the same tribe. Here the investigating agent held his court; and the
place was crowded with drunken Indians, and more uncivilized
speculators, parading about, as some had done among the spectators at
the festival, with blacked eyes and lacerated faces,--the trophies of
_civil_ war for _savage_ plunder. At the house where we dined, I found
the landlady and her family implacable Indian haters. I was afterwards
told the cause. Her husband is continually marrying Indian
wives,--probably to entitle himself to their lands. He, being a
_sneezer_, and keeping a tavern, is a great man among them. I saw a very
comely young squaw promenading, who believed herself to be one of the
_sneezer-chubco-mico's_ last wives. The man's white and original wife
and daughters made an excuse to walk by, to have a look at the
aboriginal interloper. The latter had just received from my landlord a
present of a pair of gaudy bracelets, for which he had paid eighteen
dollars at another _sneezer's_,--bracelets worth about four. I was told
how the man came by this red mate of his. He had taken a young chiefs
wife in her husband's absence. The chief, returning while my landlord
was absent, got his young wife back. The landlord, on reappearing, is
said to have threatened the chief with General Jackson and big guns. The
chief said he was partial to his wife; but he had a sister much
prettier, and, for the sake of peace, if nothing were said about the
matter, Mr. Landlord should have her for a wife. The bargain was struck.
The handsome little squaw I have spoken of is that same young chief's
sister. This stealing of wives is beginning to excite some commotion. I
heard that there had been a council of chiefs in the neighborhood of
Talassee. It was a very animated one, and the wrong of wife-stealing was
violently discussed. It was thought by some almost as bad as
land-stealing. Others felt rather relieved by it. One of the drunken
Indians whom I saw reeling and whooping about, as I stood at the door of
the log hut where we dined, seemed of the latter party. I asked a
_linkister_ the meaning of a song the Indian was singing with such glee.
The black _linkister_ laughed, and was reluctant to explain; but when I
pressed him, the following proved to be the meaning of the burthen:--
A man may have a wife,
And that wife an untrue one;
And yet the man won't die,
But go and get a new one.
No doubt the poor fellow had been robbed in the same way, and, between
music and whiskey, was providing himself with consolation.
I was invited to 'camp out,' as they call it, near the sacred square. A
Mr. Du Bois, a man with an Indian wife and family, had arrangements for
the purpose in a neighboring field; so I went to the evening dance, and
left my party to the enjoyment of a sheltering roof at the frontier Blue
Beard's in Talassee; having made up my mind, after I had seen enough
more of the Indian festival for the night, to accept the proffered
'field-bed' which was so conveniently nigh, and sleep, for the first
time, in a real 'sky parlor.'
I sat to look at the evening dances till very late. The blazing fire
through the darkness gave a new aspect and still more striking wildness
to the fantastic scene. Some ceremonies yet unattempted seemed to be
going on over the drinks in the deep cauldrons; and the figures around
them, with those of the dancers, reminded me of the witch scenes in
Macbeth, as conceived by Shakspeare, not by the actors of them upon the
stage. Four grim figures were stirring the cauldrons incessantly, with a
sort of humming incantation, the others dancing around. In one of their
dances they used a sort of small kettle-drum, with a guitar-like handle
to it. But after a while, the evening dances seemed to vary from the
devotional to the complimentary and to the diverting; but the daylight
ones were altogether devotional. Apotheola led one of the less lofty
order, and he is one of the most popular and respected of their chiefs.
Its music seemed to consist of an exclamation from him of Yo, ho, ho!
yo, ho, ho!--to which the response appeared as if complimentary, and to
contain only the animated and measured repetition of _Apotheo_LA!
_Apotheo_LA! Another dance, which excited most boisterous mirth, was led
by a chief who is called by the borderers Peter the Gambler. He is a
great humorist, and famous for his love of play,--famous even among the
Indians, who are all gamblers. Once throwing dice with a chief, he
staked himself against a negro slave, and won the negro. I never saw a
party more diverted than were the lookers-on at this dance. It was all
monkey capers, but all with a meaning to the Indians beyond the
perception of the whites. The Indian spectators made their remarks from
their couches as the solemn mockeries proceeded, and the object of the
remarks seemed to be to provoke the dancers to laugh by making fun, and
the object of the dancers to provoke the fun-makers to laugh by
performing extravagant caricatures with imperturbable gravity.
Our semi-civilized inviter got a bench for us. Some Indians, when it was
not entirely filled, tried to pull it away. Several young ones, as a
fellow was trying to tug it from under us, seemed vastly amused at Du
Bois for saying, 'Keep your seats! keep your seats!' and mimicked him
and laughed. But we were entirely unmolested in any other way, excepting
for an instant by one white rascal on the road, as I was coming, who
galloped up towards me violently, in the dark, and shouted, 'Who the
hell may you be, if one were to let you alone?' Just then, however, I
got up to my party, and he said no more.
I have not mentioned, I believe, that no one is allowed in the sacred
square who tastes food during the devotional part of the ceremonies; but
to get drunk on this occasion is a specially great offence. It is also
considered as a desecration for an Indian to allow himself to be touched
by even the dress of a white man, until the ceremony of purification is
complete. There was a finely, though slightly, built Indian,--more
French than Tartar in his look and manner,--a _linkister_, too,--the
whites called him Charley,--and Charley had got very drunk. He was, of
course, _compelled_ to keep among the crowd outside. During the evening
dance, a chief censured those who stayed from the ceremony, and those
who dishonored it by appearing in this unworthy state. Charley was by
that time very drunk indeed, but very good humored. He came nearly naked
to listen. He heard the lecture; and, as he reeled around, pretending to
cover his face for shame, it was amusing to see his tricks to evade
tumbling against any of the bystanders, lifting his hands with an air of
dandified disdain as he staggered to one side, and repeating the mock
contemptuousness when rolling towards the same peril on the other. Next
morning I heard numbers of the natives, sitting all along the outside of
the sacred square, laughing very loud, and very good-naturedly quizzing
poor Charley, who had slept off somewhat of his exhilaration, but none
of his good humor. Charley laughed, too, and looked foolish, and laughed
again.
So, to go back and resume my story.
We went to our 'field-bed.' It consisted of a shed of loose boards on
tall stakes, and under it a raised platform of loose boards upon shorter
stakes. There were several human forms already wrapped in blankets and
asleep upon the platform. One of our party, attempting to get among
them, was told by Milly,--Du Bois's Indian wife,--who just then awoke,
'No here,--no here! dat not de rule!' It seems this was the female side
of the house. My buffalo robe was spread at the opposite end. I pulled
off my boots, and set them in the grass under the bed, and slept
delightfully. The only time I awoke, I saw the eyes of a towering black
figure fixed upon me. The chap was seeking a spot for a snooze among us;
but finding every inch of room occupied, gazed for a moment at a tree,
flung down his blanket, and tumbled on the grass, the tall tree he had
been eyeing, at his head, and a lesser one at his heels. The female side
of my house was divided from the male side by Du Bois, who slept between
the ladies and the gentlemen. Our party consisted of nine in all, Indian
ladies included. In the morning, at day-break, we were up. With a joke
to Milly about 'de rule,'--which she answered with a good-humored smile,
covering her face as she smiled,--we went back to the sacred square
among the Indians, who had been all night awake and at their devotions.
I found them preparing for the ceremonies which close the fast. Many
were standing about, and all intent on the preparations for the morning
forms. They went through the taking of the black drink, repeating all
they had done the day previous. But on this occasion I more particularly
observed two circular plates of brass and steel, which appeared the
remains of very antique shields. They were borne with great reverence by
two chiefs. The natives do not pretend to explain whence they came. They
keep them apart, as something sacred. They are only produced on great
occasions. I was told, too, that ears of green corn were brought in at a
part of the ceremony to-day, which I missed, and that they were
presented to a chief. He took them, and, after an invocation that the
corn might continue plentiful among them the year through, handed them
back.
This seemed the termination of the peace-offerings, and the religious
part of the affair was now to wind up with emblems of war. These were
expressed in what they call a Gun-Dance. When the dispositions were
making for it, some persons in carriages were desired by a white
_linkister_ to fall back and to remove their horses to a distance. Some
ladies, especially, were warned. 'Keep out of their way, ma'am,' said
the _linkister_ to a lady, 'for when they come racing about here with
their guns, they gits powerful sarcy.' I saw them dressing for the
ceremony, if it may be called dressing to throw off nearly every part of
a scanty covering. But the Indians are especially devoted to dress, in
their way. Some of them went aside to vary their costume with nearly
every dance.
Now appeared a procession of some forty or fifty women. They entered the
square, and took their seats together in one of the open houses. Two
men sat in front of them, holding gourds filled with pebbles. The gourds
were shaken so as to keep time, and the women began a long chant, with
which, at regular intervals, was given a sharp, short whoop from male
voices. The women's song was said to be intended for the wail of
mothers, wives, and daughters at the departure of the warriors for the
fight; the response conveyed the resolution of the warriors not to be
withheld, but to fight and conquer. And now were seen two
hideous-looking old warriors, with tomahawks and scalping-knives,
painted most ferociously. Each went half round the circle, exchanged
exclamations, kept up a sort of growl all the while, and at length
stopped with a war-whoop.
At this juncture, we were told to hurry to the outer square. The females
and their male leaders left their places inside, and went to the mound
in the centre of the outer square. The mound became entirely covered
with their forms, and the effect was very imposing. Here they resumed
their chant. The spectators mounted on the embankment. I got on a pile
of wood,--holy wood, I believe, and heaped there to keep up the sacred
fires. There were numbers of Indian women in the crowd. Four stuffed
figures were placed, one in each of the four corners of the square.
We now heard firing and whooping on all sides. At length in the high
corn on one side we saw crouching savages, some with guns of every sort,
some, especially the boys, with corn-stalks to represent guns. A naked
chief with a long sabre, the blade painted blood color, came before
them, flourishing his weapon and haranguing vehemently. In another
corn-field appeared another party. The two savages already mentioned as
having given the war dance in the sacred square, now hove in sight on a
third side, cowering. One of them I understood was the person who had
shot the chief I mentioned in the first part of this letter--the chief
who made an objectionable treaty, and whose house was burned. Both these
warriors crept slyly towards the outer square. One darted upon one of
the puppets, caught him from behind, and stole him off; another grasped
another puppet by the waist, flung him in the air, tumbled on him as he
fell, ripped him with his knife, tore off the scalp, and broke away in
triumph. A third puppet was tomahawked, and a fourth shot. These were
the emblems of the various forms of warfare.
After the first shot, the two parties whooped, and began to fire
indiscriminately, and every shot was answered by a whoop. One shot his
arrow into the square, but falling short of the enemy, he covered
himself with corn and crept thither to regain the arrow, and bore it
back in safety, honored with a triumphant yell as he returned. After
much of this bush skirmishing, both parties burst into the square. There
was unremitted firing and war-whooping, the music of chanting and of the
pebbled gourd going all the while. At length the fighters joined in
procession, dancing a triumphal dance around the mound, plunging thence
headlong into the sacred square and all around it, and then scampering
around the outside, and pouring back to the battle square; and the
closing whoop being given, the entire multitude from the battle square
rushed, helter-skelter, yelping, some firing as they went, and others
pelting down the spectators from their high places, with the corn-stalks
that had served for guns, and which gave blows so powerful that those
who laughed at them as weapons before, rubbed their shoulders and walked
away ashamed.
We resumed our conveyances homeward, and heard the splashing and
shouting, as we departed, of the warriors in the water.
Leave was now given to taste the corn, and all ate their fill, and, I
suppose, did not much refrain from drinking; for I heard that every
pathway and field around was in the morning strewed with sleeping
Indians.
We passed the day following in visits to the picturesque scenery of the
neighborhood. We saw the fine falls of the Talapoosa, where the broken
river tumbles over wild and fantastic precipices, varying from forty to
eighty or a hundred feet in hight; and when wandering among the slippery
rocks, we passed an old Indian with his wife and child and bow and
arrows. They had been shooting fishes in the stream, from a point
against which the fishes were brought to them by the current. The
scenery and the natives would have formed a fine picture. An artist of
the neighborhood made me a present of a view of these falls, which I
will show you when we meet.
The next part of the festival among the red folks--and which I
did not see, being that day on my 'tour in search of the
picturesque'--consisted, I was told, in the display of wives urging out
their husbands to hunt deer. When, from our travels among fine scenery,
we went down to the sacred square, towards night, we met Indians with
deer slung over their horses. The skin of the first that is shot is
presented to a priest, who flings it back to the slayer to be retained
by him as a trophy, and at the same time asks from the Great Spirit that
this may prove only the harbinger of deer in abundance whenever wanted.
There was some slight dancing that evening in the sacred square, but not
of significance enough to make it an object with me to remain for it,
and as so many were reserving themselves for the winding-up assembly of
the ladies, on Sunday morning, I thought I would do the same. Some of
our party stayed, however, for the night. They found a miscellaneous
dance at a house in the vicinity,--negroes, borderers, and reprobate
Indians, all collected in one incongruous mass. A vagabond frontier man
there asked a girl to dance. She refused, and was going to dance with
another. The first drew his pistol, and swore if she would not dance
with him she should not dance at all. Twenty pistols were clicked in an
instant; but the borderer, with a horse-laugh, asked if they thought he
didn't know there was not a soul in that section of country who dared to
draw a trigger against him? He was right, for the pistols were dropped
and the room cleared on the instant; whereupon the bully borderer
clapped his wings and crowed and disappeared.
The assemblage of the females I was rather solicitous to see, and so I
was at my post betimes. I had long to wait. I heard the gathering cry
from the men on all sides, in the corn-fields and bushes; it was like
the neighing to each other of wild horses. After a while the ladies
began to arrive. The spectators crowded in.
The Indian men went to their places, and among them a party to sing
while the women danced, two of the men rattling the gourds. The
cauldrons had disappeared from the centre of the sacred square.
And now entered a long train of females, all dressed in long gowns, like
our ladies, but all with gay colors, and bright shawls of various hues,
and beads innumerable upon their necks, and tortoise-shell combs in
their hair, and ears bored all around the rim, from top to bottom, and
from every bore a massive ear-drop, very long, and generally of silver.
A selected number of the dancers wore under their robes, and girded upon
their calves, large squares of thick leather, covered all over with
terrapin-shells closed together and perforated and filled with pebbles,
which rattled like so many sleigh-bells. These they have the knack of
keeping silent until their accompaniment is required for the music of
the dance. The dresses of all the women were so long as nearly to
conceal the feet, but I saw that some had neither shoes nor stockings
on, while others were sandalled. The shawls were principally worn like
mantles. Broad ribbons, in great profusion and of every variety of hue,
hung from the back of each head to the ground, and, as they moved,
these, and the innumerable sparkling beads of glass and coral and gold,
gave the wearers an air of graceful and gorgeous, and, at the same time,
unique wildness.
The procession entered slowly, and wound around the central fire, which
still blazed gently there, although the cauldrons had been removed; and
the train continued to stretch itself out, till it extended to three
circles and a half. The shorter side then became stationary, and stood
facing the men, who were seated in that building which contained the
chanters. This last rank of dancers seemed to include the principal
wearers of the terrapin leg-bands, which they continued to rattle,
keeping time with the chant, without shifting their position. At each
end of their line was a leader, one an old woman and the other not
young, both bearing a little notched stick, with two feathers floating
from it. At a particular turn of the general figure of the dance, these
two broke off from their fixed rank, and made a circuit outside of all
the rest, and more briskly, while the main body of the dancers, the
three circles before mentioned, which had never ceased to move, still
proceeded slowly round and round, only turning at a given signal to face
the men, as the men had turned to face the emblem of the Deity, the
central fire. Every eye among the women was planted on the ground. I
never beheld such an air of universal modesty. It seemed a part of the
old men's privilege to make comments aloud, in order to surprise the
women into a laugh. These must often have been very droll, and always
personal, I understand, and not always the most delicate. I saw a few
instances among the young girls where they were obliged to smother a
smile by putting up their handkerchiefs. But it was conquered on the
instant. The young men said nothing; but the Indian men, whether old or
young, seemed all to take as much interest in the show as we. The chief,
Apotheola, had two daughters there. Both are very elegant girls, but the
eldest delighted me exceedingly. She seemed about seventeen or eighteen.
She is tall, a fine figure; her carriage graceful and _distingué_, and
quite European. She had a white muslin gown; a black scarf, wrought all
over with flowers in brilliant colors; an embroidered white
_collarette_, I believe you call it; gold chains, coral beads, gold and
jewelled ear-rings,--single ones, not in the usual Indian
superabundance,--her hair beautifully dressed in the Parisian style; a
splendid tortoise-shell comb, gemmed; and from one large tuft of hair
upon one temple to that upon the other there passed a beautiful gold
ornament. Her sister's head-dress was nearly the same. The aforesaid
elder Princess Apotheola, I am happy to say, looked only at me. Some one
must have told her that I meant to run away with her, for I had said so
before I saw her to many of her friends. There was a very frolicksome,
quizzical expression in her eye; and now and then it seemed to say, 'No
doubt you think all these things wonderfully droll. It diverts me to see
you so puzzled by them.' But, excepting the look at me, which only
proved her excellent taste, her eye dwelt on the ground, and nothing
could have been more interestingly reserved than her whole deportment.
The dance over, all the ladies went from the square in the same order
that they entered it.
In about an hour, the same dance was repeated. When it ended, signal was
made for what they call The Dance of the Olden Time,--the breaking up of
the ceremonial, when the men and women are again allowed to intermingle.
This was done in a quick movement around and around and around again,
all the men yelping wildly and merrily, as struck their fancy, and
generally in tones intended to set the women laughing, which they did,
and heartily. The sounds most resembled the yelpings of delighted dogs.
Finally came the concluding whoop, and all the parties separated.
Between these two last dances, I sent for a chief, and desired him to
take charge of some slight gifts of tobacco and beads which I had
brought for them. The chief took them. I saw the others cut the tobacco,
and share it. Ere long my ambassador returned, saying, 'The chiefs are
mighty glad, and count it from you as very great friendship.' I had
been too bashful about my present, and kept it back too long, through
over-shyness. If I had sent it before, I might have seen the show to
more advantage. As it was, I was immediately invited to sit inside the
square, and witness the last dance from one of the places of honor.
But I was now obliged to depart, and to give up all hopes of ever again
seeing my beautiful Princess Apotheola. My only chance of a guide
through the wilderness would have been lost had I delayed. So I
reluctantly mounted my pony; and I left the Indians of Tuckabatchie and
their Green-Corn Festival, and their beautiful Princess Apotheola.
* * * * *
It was a great gratification to me to have seen this festival; with my
own eyes to have witnessed the Indians in their own nation, with my own
ears to have heard them in their own language. Nor was it any diminution
of the interest of the spectacle to reflect that this ceremony, so
precious to them, was now probably performing in the land of their
forefathers for the last, last time. I never beheld more intense
devotion; and the spirit of the forms was a right and a religious one.
It was beginning the year with fasting, with humility, with
purification, with prayer, with gratitude. It was burying animosities,
while it was strengthening courage. It was pausing to give thanks to
Heaven, before daring to partake its beneficence. It was strange to see
this, too, in the midst of my own land; to travel, in the course of a
regular journey in the New World, among the living evidences of one, it
may be, older than what we call the Old World;--the religion, and the
people, and the associations of the untraceable past, in the very heart
of the most recent portion of the most recent people upon earth. And it
was a melancholy reflection for ourselves, that, comparing the majority
of the white and red assemblage there, the barbarian should be so
infinitely the more civilized and the more interesting of the two.
ROSIN THE BOW.
A FANTASIA.
In Paris, a famous city in France,
That lies by the banks of the sluggish Seine,
Where you and I may never have been,
But which we know all about in advance;--
A place of wild and wicked romance,
A place where they gamble, and fiddle and dance,
And the slowest coach has always a chance
To get put over the road, I ween,
Where women are naughty, and men are gay,
And the suicides number a dozen a day,
And one of the gallant _jeunesse dorée_
Will spend the night at prodigious play,
And in the morning go out and slay
His bosom friend with a rapier keen,
Because he loses and cannot pay,--
Lived a nice young man named DIDIER.
This nice young man had run aground,
As such young men are apt to do;
His creditors swore and his mistress frowned,
His breeches pockets held ne'er a _sou_,
His boots were getting out at the toes,
His hat was seedy, and so were his clothes,
And, as he wandered the city around,
He could not think of a single friend
Slow to dun and prompt to lend,
Whose purse he thought he could venture to sound;
In such extremities friends are few;
At least I think so, friend, don't you?
At length, on the brink of a grim despair,
He happened to think of a quaint old fellow,
A comical customer, rusty and slow,
But who used to be an elegant beau,
In dress and manner quite _comme il faut_;
And who, because he happened to know
How to play on the violoncello,
Which he'd learned for fun long time ago,
Before his finances got so low,
Had obtained a place in an orchestra choir,
And played that beautiful instrument there;
And to him monsieur determined to go;
And so,
Up to the top of a rickety stair,
To a little attic cold and bare,
He stumbled, and found the artist there.
He told his tale; how his former pride
Was crushed and humbled into the dust;
He swore he had thought of suicide,
But the charcoal venders wouldn't trust;
He had no profession or trade or art,
Money or food, and perish he must;
And then like a blacksmith's forge he sighed,
A sigh that touched the fiddler's heart.
'Cheer up, _mon cher_, and never mind;
You're the very man I was trying to find.
You know at the grand Theatre Français
The leading violoncello I play,
And my salary is two francs a day.
There's a vacant place; if you are inclined
To take the same, you'll find 'twill pay.'
DIDIER looked up in a vast amaze:
'Why, I can't do so, you very well know,
For I never fiddled in my born days.'
'_Qu'a cela ne tienne_,' his friend replied,
'Don't be too certain,--you never have tried;
You ought to give your abilities scope;
There is an anxiety most of us feel,
We may be out of time or tune,
Leave off too late, or begin too soon,
May pitch too sharp, or perhaps too flat;
So here is a cake of excellent soap,
The old, original, pure Castile,
Just rosin your bow with that.'
He took his seat in an orchestra chair,
'Twould have made you stare
Had you been there
To see his knowing and confident air,
And to hear the considerate manager say,
'There is nobody like young _Didier_;
So nice and exact, so quite _au fait_,
With a style so thoroughly _recherché_,
Some other concern may get him away,
So I think I shall have to double his pay!'
In clover the youth continues to graze,
And still in the orchestra he plays;
He's the man who never was known to make
The smallest shadow of a mistake,
And there's only one drawback on his praise,--
He is too modest by fifty per cent
For such a master of the art,
For the story went he would never consent
To play a _solo_ part.
There's a MORAL, my juvenile friend, in this,
And you need not stumble and grope;
Just look for it sharp, and you can't go amiss;
You will find, there is nothing like soap!
Don't suffer yourself to be cast down
If capricious luck should happen to frown,
Go through with the motions, and if you're acute
None will ever suspect that your fiddle is mute;
But be sure and do as the rest of us do,
And don't flourish your stick till you get your cue.
Thus, let prosperity ebb or flow,
Still bate no jot of hope,
You may draw the longest kind of a bow
If 'tis only rosined with soap!
THE GRAVEYARD AT PRINCETON.
Reader, have you ever visited the pleasant village of Princeton, New
Jersey, renowned alike in the annals of the country and of the church?
While traveling from New York to Philadelphia by the New Jersey
Railroad, you have doubtless obtained a glimpse of it, for it is 'a city
set on a hill, which can not be hid,' and from the 'station,' a mile or
two distant, its spires and belfries, gleaming from amid its thick
embowering trees, present an interesting and picturesque appearance.
Passing onward from the station, the first notable object that meets the
eye of the traveler is the Theological Seminary, a large, plain building
of stone, the head-quarters in America of that branch of the Christian
Church of whose stern, unflinching orthodoxy John Knox was at once the
type and exponent. Near it stands its Library, an elegant Gothic
structure erected through the munificence of James Lenox, of New York,
and containing many works of great value. The street on which these
buildings stand is appropriately named Mercer Street, for beyond them,
at a short distance, lies the battle-field of Princeton, and the spot
where the gallant Hugh Mercer fell. That spot was formerly marked by a
large tree, but a few years ago the hallowed landmark was cut down and
removed by heartless barbarians. The house to which the wounded hero was
carried, where the 'two Quaker ladies waited on him' so assiduously,
still stands, and on the floor of the room in which he died are certain
marks, of doubtful origin, said to be blood-stains from his death-wound.
Over the now peaceful battle-field, reddened with nothing more terrible
than the ruddy clover-heads, a tall flag-staff, surmounted by a gilded
eagle, uprears the glorious stars and stripes, and attests the loyalty
of the people of Princeton.
About midway of the long, shady street of which Princeton chiefly
consists, stands the crowning glory of the place, the venerable College
of New Jersey. The college proper is a long, four-story edifice of
stone, its center adorned with a tower and belfry, conspicuous from
afar. At either side of it are clustered other buildings, embracing its
halls, recitation rooms, and chapel.
It stands a little distance back from the street, between it and which
lies the 'Campus,' a beautiful grassy slope of vivid green, surrounded
with an iron fence, laid out with neat gravel walks, and shaded by noble
and magnificent trees of more than a century's growth. Nothing can be
more beautiful in summer time than this shady lawn. Here, at all hours
of the day, students may be seen reading alone, or conversing in groups,
seated on the benches placed at intervals among the trees, or stretched
at full length on the fragrant grass, kicking their heels gymnastically
in the air, or sauntering with arms interlocked along the gravel walks,
singing, perhaps, some college song, such as
'Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus,'
or others less classical and more uproarious.
Here, too, those known to their class-mates as the 'hard fellows,' are
wont to prowl in the darkened hours, making night hideous with terrific
voices, or stealing in darkness and silence to play some trick on the
'Profs.' or 'Tutes.'
From the gates of the Campus, every afternoon at the hour of five, or
after prayers, the whole troop of students, to the number of three
hundred, issue, for the purpose of taking their evening walk. Down the
street they march, by twos and threes, chatting, laughing, telling
college stories, or rehearsing the gossip of the day, into the extreme
lower end of the long street, a locality known as Orthodox Corner, where
they turn and march back in the same order. As they proceed, their ranks
are gradually swelled by a couple of hundreds of 'Seminary' students
(distinguishable by their more mature appearance, their heavier beards,
and their 'stove-pipe hats'), and their walk enlivened by the sight of
numerous ladies, who, by a remarkable coincidence, have also chosen the
hour between five and six as the most fashionable for promenading, the
dames of course usually going _up_ the street as the students are going
_down_, and _down_ as, the students are going _up_, in order to afford
them opportunities to exercise their graces in bowing to those whom they
know, and staring at those whom they do not. For one brief hour, the
quiet street presents the appearance of a crowded city, the pedestrians
jostling each other as they pass and repass; but soon as the hour of six
arrives, all is still again, for youths and maidens are alike engaged in
discussing that meal for which their long walk has served as a whet.
But it was of the dead, not the living, that I was about to speak.
Nearly opposite the college Campus we find Witherspoon Street, named
after that brave and good man who was president of the college in the
days of the Revolution, and one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence. Following this street a short distance, we come to the
city of the dead. It is situated on an eminence, commanding a fine view
of the surrounding country, embracing the village of Kingston, the
distant spires of Trenton, and the blue range of hills beyond which roll
the dark waters of the Atlantic. In natural advantages it can not
compare with some of our modern cemeteries, but the historic interest
which attaches to it more than compensates for the lack of picturesque
effect.
The first spot to which the visitor is directed, is the inclosure
containing the graves of the presidents of Princeton College. They are
all of the old-fashioned style of 'table tombs,' now so seldom
constructed; a flat slab, stretched on four walls of solid masonry,
covering the whole grave. It was on such a tombstone that, in the old
Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh, the solemn League and Covenant, from
which resulted events so important to Scotland, was signed. No 'storied
urn or animated bust' records the virtues of these venerable men,--not
even marble in its simplest form has been used to mark their
resting-place. The slabs are of coarse, grey stone, with long
inscriptions in Latin occupying their entire surface. Many of them,
especially that of the pious and renowned JONATHAN EDWARDS, who
left his New England home only to find a grave in New Jersey, having
died a month after his removal to Princeton, have been most shamefully
mutilated by relic-hunters and curiosity-mongers; innumerable pieces
having been chipped off the edges of the slabs, until even the
inscriptions have been encroached upon. To prevent, if possible, further
mutilation, the following unique and elaborate, but eloquent notice,
enclosed in an iron frame, has been placed over the graves of these
reverend fathers. It was written by Professor, now Dr. Giger, of the
college.
Keep your sacrilegious hands off these venerable stones! Parian
marble, wrought with consummate skill, could not replace them.
Connected with these homely monuments are historical associations
that ought not to be forgotten. The scarcity of better materials,
the rudeness of monumental sculpture, the poverty of the country,
the early struggles and pecuniary embarrassments of the colony, at
the period when these monuments were erected, as well as the
self-denial and hardships and labors of the distinguished men who
gave fame and usefulness to Nassau Hall, are indicated by these
rough stones. Nothing modern, nothing polished or magnificent,
could suggest the early history of New Jersey. Spare what remains
of these broken memorials. Thoughtless young man! why do you break
and deface these old monuments? A few fragments carried in your
pocket, or placed in your cabinet, will not impart to you the
activity and energy of Burr, or the profound and logical intellect
of Edwards, or the eloquence of Davies, or the piety and triumphant
death of Finley, or the poetical wisdom, the power of governing and
inspiring youth, the love of knowledge, and the stern, unflinching
patriotism of Witherspoon. If you admire and reverence the
character of these great and good men, read their works imitate
their example; and forbear, we beseech you, to add to the shameful
mutilation of the frail memorials intended to protect their bones
from insult.
But there is a strange and startling incongruity observable in this
enclosure. At the foot of the grave where rest the remains of the
venerable Aaron Burr, first president of the College of New Jersey,
stands a tall white marble monument of modern form and appearance, so
utterly out of keeping with the rest of the tombs, that the visitor at
once turns to it, and is none the less startled to find that it marks
the last resting-place of that other Aaron Burr, the traitor, the
duellist, the libertine, whose remains, brought hither in the night,
were surreptitiously buried at the feet of his venerated father, and
this monument placed over them, years afterwards, in the same manner.
And for his father's sake, there they were suffered to remain. 'After
life's fitful fever he sleeps well,' in the midst of these old grey
stones, and surrounded by the honored dead. The monument bears no
record, except his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the
statement that he was Vice-President of the United States from 1801 to
1805. It is as if it said,--
'No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode.'
Not a quarter of a mile from where his dust thus reposes, there sleeps,
in a neglected grave in a small grove of trees behind the college, one
of his hapless victims, a young lady of Philadelphia, who died, as the
mouldering headstone, half sunken in the turf, informs us, 'at the early
age of twenty-two.'
The next point of interest is the spot where seven or eight elegant
shafts of white marble, erected by their class-mates, mark the graves of
students who have died during their collegiate course. They are all
remarkable for the beauty and chaste simplicity of their design, and the
appropriateness of their inscriptions. No historic interest attaches to
them; no well-earned fame gilds them with a halo of glory; but a feeling
touching and sad creeps over the heart as we read on the tomb the name
of each sleeper's distant home, and think of the poor young man dying in
the midst of strangers, while doubtless
'There was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.'
Passing on, we reach the graves of the three Alexanders, father and two
sons, whose writings are dear to so many Christian hearts. Side by side
they repose, under three slabs of pure white marble, inscribed with
appropriate epitaphs. That of the father, Archibald Alexander, for fifty
years professor in the Theological Seminary, is a simple, unadorned
record of his personal history; that of the younger brother, Joseph
Addison, who was a man of immense learning, able to read, write, and
converse in sixteen languages, tells us that 'his great talents and vast
learning were entirely devoted to the exposition and elucidation of the
Word of God;' but to New Yorkers that of the elder brother, Dr. James W.
Alexander, is fraught with the greatest interest, from his having so
lately occupied a prominent place among the first divines and scholars
of our country. It runs thus:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER.
A man of God, thoroughly furnished unto all good works; a learned,
elegant, and accomplished scholar; a faithful, affectionate, and
beloved pastor; an able, eloquent, and successful preacher;
professor of mathematics in the College of New Jersey; professor of
ecclesiastical history in Princeton Theological Seminary; pastor of
the Presbyterian Church, corner of Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth
Street, New York.
Throughout his life and labors, he illustrated those gifts and
graces that exalt humanity and adorn the church of God.
Scattered about the graveyard are many monuments, attractive and
interesting from their artistic beauty alone. One of the most chaste and
elegant designs I have ever seen is the tomb erected by a gentleman of
Philadelphia, to the memory of his wife, son, and daughter, who perished
in the burning of the 'Henry Clay' on the Hudson River. It is in the
form of a casket, of white marble, beautifully carved and of graceful
form, elevated on a pedestal of polished stone, of a blueish tint. On
one end of the casket are inscribed the words
WIFE
DAUGHTER
SON
on the other end,
MOTHER
SISTER
BROTHER
while one side bears the appropriate text of Scripture:--
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and
through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee;
and the other the comforting words:--
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
Under a drooping cypress tree, half hidden amid its dark green foliage,
is a monument of white marble, in the form of a Greek cross, low but
massive, on which there is no epitaph or inscription whatever; but on
the little foot-stone beyond it are the simple words:--
GENEVIEVE.
Died 1851,
Aged 18.
Numerous 'broken rosebuds' mark the graves of children, and the device
is so often repeated as to become tiresome; but on one handsome monument
is carved a wreath of flowers, from which a rose has apparently dropped,
and fallen on the pedestal,--a beautiful illustration of the loss the
family circle had sustained in the death of her who rests below. Another
child-grave, the tombstone a small upright slab surmounted by a wreath
of flowers, bears the touching inscription:--
Our only Son,
JOHN AGUR E----.
Aged 2 years.
Many graves here, as elsewhere, are adorned with examples of 'graveyard
poetry;' but most of it is of that humble character which is illustrated
by the following:--
'Farewell, beloved wife: I must go
And leave you in this world of woe.
A few short years, then we shall meet
Together at our Saviour's feet.'
One more epitaph, before we leave this interesting and time-honored
place of graves. It is from a plain horizontal slab, not far from the
entrance; and is, to our thinking, one of the most beautiful and
touching monumental inscriptions ever penned.
SARAH B----,
Wife of the Rev. C---- K----.
A humble worshiper of Christ, she lived in love and died in faith.
Truthful woman, delightful companion, ardent friend, devoted wife,
self-sacrificing mother, we lay you gently here, our best beloved,
to gather strength and beauty for the coming of the Lord.
AMONG THE PINES.
Some winters ago I passed several weeks at Tallahassee, Florida, and
while there made the acquaintance of Colonel J----, a South Carolina
planter. Accident, some little time later, threw us together again at
Charleston, when I was gratified to learn that he would be my _compagnon
du voyâge_ as far north as New York.
He was accompanied by his body-servant, 'Jim,' a fine specimen of the
genus darky, about thirty years of age, born and reared in his master's
family. As far as possible we made the journey by day, stopping at some
convenient resting-place by night; on which occasions the Colonel, Jim,
and myself would occupy the same or adjoining apartments, 'we white
folks' sleeping on four posts, while the more democratic negro spread
his blanket on the floor. Thrown together thus intimately, it was but
natural that we should learn much of each other.
The 'Colonel' was a highly cultivated and intelligent gentleman, and
during this journey a friendship sprung up between us,--afterward kept
alive by a regular correspondence,--which led him, with his wife and
daughter, and the man Jim, to my house on his next visit at the North,
one year later. I then promised,--if I should ever again travel in South
Carolina,--to visit him on his plantation in the extreme north-eastern
part of the State.
In December last, a short time prior to the passage of the ordinance of
secession, I had occasion to again visit Charleston, and, previous to
setting out, dispatched a letter to the Colonel with the information
that I was then ready to be led of him 'into the wilderness.' On
arriving at the head-quarters of Secession, I found a missive awaiting
me, in which he cordially renewed his previous tender of hospitality,
gave me particular directions how to proceed, and stated that his 'man
Jim' would meet me with a carriage at Georgetown, and convey me thence,
seventy miles, to 'the plantation.'
Having performed the business which led me to Charleston, I set out for
the rendezvous five days before the date fixed for the meeting,
intending to occupy the intervening time in an exploration of the
ancient town and its surroundings. Having passed the half of one day and
the whole of one night in that delectable place,--during which night I
was set on and nearly annihilated, while lying defenceless in my bed, by
a myriad of Carolina _big-bugs_,--I found it so intolerably dull that,
to escape a siege of 'the blues,' I hired a horse and a negro driver at
a livery-stable, and started off for the plantation.
I make this preliminary statement to give the reader a satisfactory
reason for taking him over wretched roads, at so inclement a season,
with no companion but an ebony Jehu, into the very heart of
Secessiondom.
My companion was a very intelligent native African, of the name of
Scipio, who 'hired his time' of his mistress, and obtained his living by
doing odd jobs around the streets and wharves of Georgetown. Portions of
the country through which we passed were almost as wild as the forests
of Oregon, and in some places the feeling against the North and Northern
travelers ran very high. I had some strange encounters with swollen
streams and roaring secessionists, in which my negro driver was of great
service to me; and the knowledge I thus gained of him led me for the
first time to the opinion, that real elevation and nobility of character
may exist under an ebony skin.
Our first day on the road was clear, sunshiny, and of delicious
temperature--one of those days so peculiar to the Southern winter, when
the blood bounds through every vein as if thrilled by electricity, and a
man of lively temperament can scarcely restrain his legs from dancing a
breakdown. Night found us thirty miles on our way, and under the roof of
a hospitable planter. A storm came on with the going down of the sun,
and lasted during the following day; but, desiring to arrive at my
destination before the servant should set out to meet me, I decided to
push on in the rain.
Our second day's travel was attended with sundry interruptions and
adventures, and night overtook us in the midst of a forest, uncertain
where we were, and half dead from exposure to the storm; but after
several hours of hard riding, we found ourselves, drenched to the skin
and benumbed with the cold, before the door of a one-story log cabin,
tenanted by a family of
POOR WHITES.
The rain was falling in torrents, and the night was as 'dark as the
darkest corner of the dark place below.' We were in the midst of what
seemed an endless forest of turpentine pines, and had seen no human
habitation for hours. Not knowing where the road might lead us, and
feeling totally unable to proceed, we determined to ask shelter at the
shanty for the night.
In answer to our summons a wretched-looking, half-clad, dirt-bedraggled
woman thrust her head from the door-way, with the inquiry, 'Who are ye?'
'We'm only massa and me, and de hoss, and we'm half dead wid de cold,'
said Scipio; 'can't we cum in out ob de rain?'
'Wal, strangers,' replied the woman, eying us as closely as the darkness
would permit, 'you'll find mighty poor fixins har, but I reckon ye can
come in.'
Entering the house, we saw, by the light of a blazing pile of pine
knots, which roared and crackled on the hearth, that it contained only a
single apartment, about twenty feet square. In front of the fire-place,
which occupied the better half of one side of the room, the floor was of
the bare earth, littered over with pine chips, dead cinders, live coals,
broken pots, and a lazy spaniel dog. Opposite to this, at the other end
of the room, were two low beds, which looked as if they had been 'slept
in forever, and never made up.' Against the wall, between the beds and
the fire-place, stood a small pine table, and on it was a large wooden
bowl, from whose mouth protruded the handles of several unwashed pewter
spoons. On the right of the fire was a razeed rocking-chair, evidently
the peculiar property of the mistress of the mansion, and three blocks
of pine log, sawn off smoothly, and made to serve for seats. Over
against these towered a high-backed settle, something like that on which
'sot Huldy all alone,
When Zeke peeked thru the winder;'
and on it, her head resting partly on her arm, partly on the end of the
settle, one small, bare foot pressing the ground, the other, with the
part of the person which is supposed to require stockings, extended in a
horizontal direction,--reclined, not Huldy, but her Southern cousin,
who, I will wager, was decidedly the prettier and dirtier of the two.
Our entrance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, for she lay
there as unmoved as a marble statue, her large black eyes riveted on my
face as if seeing some nondescript animal for the first time. I stood
for a moment transfixed with admiration. In a somewhat extensive
observation of her sex, in both hemispheres, I had never witnessed such
a form, such eyes, such faultless features, and such wavy, black,
luxuriant hair. A glance at her dress,--a soiled, greasy, grayish
linsey-woolsey gown, apparently her only garment,--and a second look at
her face, which, on closer inspection, had precisely the hue of a tallow
candle, recalled me to myself, and allowed me to complete the survey of
the premises.
The house was built of unhewn logs, separated by wide interstices,
through which the cold air came, in decidedly fresh if not health-giving
currents, while a large rent in the roof, that let in the rain, gave the
inmates an excellent opportunity for indulging in a shower-bath, of
which they seemed greatly in need. The chimney, which had intruded a
couple of feet into the room, as if to keep out of the cold, and
threatened momentarily to tumble down, was of sticks, built up in clay,
while the windows were of thick, unplaned boards.
Two pretty girls, one of perhaps ten and the other of fourteen years,
evidently sisters of the unadorned beauty, the middle-aged woman
who had admitted us, and the dog,--the only male member of the
household,--composed the family. I had seen negro cabins, but these
people were whites, and these whites were _South Carolinians_. Who will
say that the days of chivalry are over, when such counterparts of the
feudal serfs still exist?
After I had seated myself by the fire, and the driver had gone out to
stow the horse away under the tumble-down shed at the back of the house,
the elder woman said to me,--
'Reckon yer wet. Ben in the rain?'
'Yes, madam, we've been out most of the day, and got in the river below
here.'
'Did ye? Ye mean the "run." I reckon it's right deep now.'
'Yes, the horse had to swim for it,' I replied.
'Ye orter strip and put on dry cloes to onst.'
'Thank you, madam, I will.'
Going to my portmanteau, which the darky had placed near the door, I
found it dripping with wet, and opening it, discovered that every
article in it had undergone the rite of total immersion.
'Everything is thoroughly soaked, madam. I shall have to dry myself by
your fire. Can you get me a cup of tea?'
'Right sorry, stranger, but I can't. Hain't a morsel to eat or drink in
the house.'
Remembering that our excellent hostess of the night before had insisted
on filling our wagon-box with a quantity of 'chicken fixins,' to serve
us in an emergency, and that my brandy flask was in my India-rubber
coat, I sent Scipio out for them.
Our stores disclosed boiled chicken, bacon, sandwiches, sweet potatoes,
short cake, corn bread, buttered waffles, and 'common doin's' too
numerous to mention, enough to last a family of one for a fortnight, but
all completely saturated with water. Wet or dry, however, the provisions
were a godsend to the half-starved family, and their hearts seemed to
open to me with amazing rapidity. The dog got up and wagged his tail,
and even the marble-like beauty arose from her reclining posture and
invited me to a seat with her on the bench.
The kettle was soon steaming over the fire, and the boiling water, mixed
with a little brandy, served as a capital substitute for tea. After the
chicken was re-cooked, and the other edibles 'warmed up,' the little
pine table was brought out, and I learned--what I had before
suspected--that the big wooden bowl and the half dozen pewter spoons
were the only 'crockery' the family possessed.
I declined the proffered seat at the table, the cooking utensils being
anything but inviting, and contented myself with the brandy and water;
but, forgetting for a moment his color, I motioned to the darky--who was
as wet and jaded, and much more hungry than I was--to take the place
offered to me. The negro did not seem inclined to do so, but the woman,
observing my gesture, yelled out, her eyes flashing with anger,--
'No, sar! No darkies eats with us. Hope ye don't reckon _yerself_ no
better than a good-for-nothin, no-account nigger!'
'I beg your pardon, madam; I intended no offense. Scipio has served me
very faithfully for two days, and is very tired and hungry. I forgot
myself.'
This mollified the lady, and she replied,--
'Niggers is good enuff in thar place, but warn't meant to 'sociate with
white folks.'
There may have been some ground for a distinction in that case; there
certainly was a difference between the specimens of the two races then
before me; but, not being one of the chivalry, it struck me that the
odds were on the side of the black man. The whites were shiftless,
ragged, and starving; the black well clad, cleanly, energetic, and as
much above the others in intellect as Jupiter is above a church steeple.
To be sure, color was against him, and he was, after all, a servant in
the land of chivalry and of servant-owners. Of course the woman was
right, after all.
She soon resumed the conversation, with this remark:--
'Reckon yer a stranger in these parts; whar d'ye come from?'
'From New York, madam.'
'New York! whar's that?'
'It's a city at the North.'
'Oh! yas; I've heern tell on it; that's whar the Cunnel sells his
turpentine. Quite a place, ain't it?'
'Yes, quite a place. Something larger than all South Carolina.'
'What d'ye say? Larger nor South Carolina! Kinder reckon tain't, is't?'
'Yes, madam, it is.'
'Du tell! Tain't so large as Charles'n, is't?'
'Yes, twenty times larger than Charleston.'
'Lord o'massy! How does all the folks live thar?'
'Live quite as well as they do here.'
'Ye don't have no niggers thar, does ye?'
'Yes, but none that are slaves.'
'Have Ablisherners thar, don't ye? Them people that go agin the South?'
'Yes, some of them.'
'What do they go agin the South for?'
'They go for freeing the slaves. Some of them think a black man as good
as a white one.'
'Quar, that; yer an Ablisherner, ain't ye?'
'No, I'm an old-fashioned Whig.'
'What's that? Never heerd on them afore.'
'An old-fashioned Whig, madam, is a man whose political principles are
perfect, and who is as perfect as his principles.'
That was a 'stumper' for the poor woman, who evidently did not
understand one half of the sentence.
'Right sort of folks, them,' she said, in a half inquiring tone.
'Yes, but they're all dead now.'
'Dead?'
'Yes, dead, beyond the hope of resurrection.'
'I've heern all the dead war to be resurrected. Didn't ye say ye war one
on 'em? _Ye_ ain't dead yet,' said the woman, chuckling at having
cornered me.
'But I'm more than _half_ dead just now.'
'Ah,' replied the woman, still laughing, 'yer a chicken.'
'A chicken! what's that?'
'A thing that goes on tu legs, and karkles,' was the ready reply.
'Ah, my dear madam, you can out-talk me.'
'Yes, I reckon I kin outrun ye, tu. Ye ain't over rugged.' Then, after a
pause, she added,--'What d'ye 'lect that darky Linkum for President
for?'
'I didn't elect him. _I_ voted for Douglass. But Lincoln is not a
darky.'
'He's a mullater, then; I've heern he war,' she replied.
'No, he's not a mulatto; he's a rail-splitter.'
'Rail-splitter? _Then he's a nigger, shore_.'
'No, madam; white men at the North split rails.'
'An' white wimmin tu, p'raps,' said the woman, with a contemptuous toss
of the head.
'No, they don't,' I replied,' but white women _work_ there.'
'White wimmin work thar!' chimed in the hitherto speechless beauty,
showing a set of teeth of the exact color of her skin,--_yaller_. 'What
du the' du?'
'Some of them attend in stores, some set type, some teach school, and
some work in factories.'
'Du tell! Dress nice, and make money?'
'Yes,' I replied, 'they make money, and dress like fine ladies; in fact,
_are_ fine ladies. I know one young woman, of about your age, that had
to get her own education, who earns a thousand dollars a year by
teaching, and I've heard of many factory-girls who support their
parents, and lay up a great deal of money, by working in the mills.'
'Wal!' replied the young woman, with a contemptuous curl of her
matchless upper lip; 'schule-marms ain't fine ladies; fine ladies don't
work; only niggers does that _har_. I reckon I'd ruther be 'spectable
than work for a livin'.'
I could but think how magnificently the lips of some of our glorious
Yankee girls would have curled had they heard that remark, and seen the
poor girl that made it, with her torn, worn, greasy dress; her bare,
dirty legs and feet, and her arms, neck, and face so thickly encrusted
with a layer of clayey mud that there was danger of hydrophobia if she
went near a wash-tub. Restraining my involuntary disgust, I replied,--
'We at the North think work is respectable. We do not look down on a
man or a woman for earning their daily bread. We all work.'
'Yas, and that's the why ye'r all sech cowards,' said the old woman.
'Cowards!' I said; 'who tells you that?'
'My old man; he says one on our _boys_ can lick five of your Yankee
_men_.'
'Perhaps so. Is your husband away from home?'
'Yes, him and our Cal. ar down to Charles'n.'
'Cal. is your son, is he?'
'Yes, he's my oldest, and a likely lad he ar tu--He's twenty-one, and
his name ar JOHN CALHOUN MILLS. He's gone a troopin' it with
his fader.'
'What, both gone and left you ladies here alone?'
'Yes, the Cunnel sed every man orter go, and they warn't to be ahind the
rest. The Cunnel--Cunnel J.--looks arter us while they is away.'
'But I should think the Colonel looked after you poorly--giving you
nothing to eat.'
'Oh! it's ben sech a storm to-day, the gals couldn't go for the vittles,
though tain't a great way. We'r on his plantation; this house is his'n.'
This last was agreeable news, and it occurred to me that if we were so
near the Colonel's we might push on, and get there that night, in spite
of the storm; so I said,--
'Indeed; I'm going to the Colonel's. How far is his house from here?'
'A right smart six mile; it's at the Cross-roads. Ye know the Cunnel, du
ye?'
'Oh, yes, I know him well. If his house is not more than six miles off,
I think we had better go on to-night. What do you say, Scip?'
'I reckon we'd better gwo, massa,' replied the darky, who had spread my
traveling-shawl in the chimney-corner, and was seated on it, drying his
clothes.
'Ye'd better not,' said the woman; 'ye better stay har; thar's a right
smart run twixt har and the Cunnel's, and tain't safe to cross arter
dark.'
'If that is so we'd better stay, Scip; don't you think so?' I said to
the darky.
'Jess as you like, massa. We got tru wid de oder one, and I reckon
tain't no woss nor dat.'
'The bridge ar carried away, and ye'll have to swim _shore_,' said the
woman. 'Ye'd better stay.'
'Thank you, madam, I think we will,' I replied, after a moment's
thought; 'our horse has swum one of your creeks to-night, and I dare not
try another.'
I had taken off my coat, and had been standing, during the greater part
of this conversation, in my shirt-sleeves before the fire, turning round
occasionally to facilitate the drying process, and taking every now and
then a sip from the gourd containing our brandy and water; aided in the
latter exercise by the old woman and the eldest girl, who indulged quite
as freely as I did.
'Mighty good brandy that,' at last said the woman. 'Ye like brandy,
don't ye?'
'Not very much, madam. I take it to-night because I've been exposed to
the storm, and it stimulates the circulation. But Scip, here, don't like
spirits. He'll get the rheumatism because he don't.'
'Don't like dem sort of sperits, massa; but rumatics neber trubble me.'
'But I've got it mighty bad,' said the woman, '_and I take 'em whenever
I kin get 'em_.'
I rather thought she did, but I 'reckoned' her principal beverage was
whisky.
'You have the rheumatism, madam, because your house is so open; a
draught of air is always unhealthy.'
'I allers reckoned 'twar _healthy_,' she replied. 'Ye Yankee folks have
quar notions.'
I looked at my watch, and found it was nearly ten o'clock, and, feeling
very tired, said to the hostess,--
'Where do you mean we shall sleep?'
'Ye can take that ar bed,' pointing to the one nearest the wall, 'the
darky can sleep har;' motioning to the settle on which she was seated.
'But where will you and your daughters sleep? I don't wish to turn you
out of your beds.'
'Oh! don't ye keer for us; we kin all bunk together; dun it afore. Like
to turn in now?'
'Yes, thank you, I would;' and without more ceremony I adjourned to the
further part of the room, and commenced disrobing. Doffing my boots,
waistcoat, and cravat, and placing my watch and purse under the pillow,
I gave a moment's thought to what a certain not very old lady, whom I
had left at home, might say when she heard of my lodging with a
grass-widow and three young girls, and sprung into bed. There I removed
my undermentionables, which were still too damp to sleep in, and in
about two minutes and thirty seconds sunk into oblivion.
A few streaks of grayish light were beginning to creep through the
crevices in the logs, when a movement at the foot of the bed awakened
me, and glancing downward I beheld the youngest girl emerging from under
the clothes at my feet. She had slept there, 'cross-wise,' all night. A
stir in the adjoining bed soon warned me that the other feminines were
preparing to follow her example; so, turning my face to the wall, I
feigned to be asleep. Their toilet was soon made, and they then quietly
left Scip and myself in full possession of the premises.
The darky rose as soon as they were gone, and, coming to me, said,--
'Massa, we'd better be gwine. I'se got your cloes all dry, and you can
rig up and breakfust at de Cunnel's.'
The storm had cleared away, and the sun was struggling to get through
the distant pines, when Scipio brought the horse to the door, and we
prepared to start. Turning to the old woman, I said,
'I feel greatly obliged to you, madam, for the shelter you have given
us, and would like to make you some recompense for your trouble. Please
to tell me what I shall pay you.'
'Wal, stranger, we don't gin'rally take in lodgers, but seein' as how as
thar ar tu on ye, and ye've had a good night on it, I don't keer if ye
pay me tu dollars.'
That struck me as 'rather steep' for 'common doin's,' particularly as we
had furnished the food and 'the drinks;' yet, saying nothing, I handed
her a two-dollar bank note. She took it, and held it up curiously to the
sun, then in a moment handed it back, saying, 'I don't know nothin'
'bout that ar sort of money; hain't you got no silver?'
I fumbled in my pocket a moment, and found a quarter-eagle, which I gave
her.
'I hain't got nary a fip o' change,' she said, as she took it.
'Oh! never mind the change, madam; I shall want to stop and _look_ at
you when I return,' I replied, good-humoredly.
'Ha! ha! yer a chicken,' said the woman, at the same time giving me a
gentle poke in the ribs. Fearing she might, in the exuberance of her joy
at the sight of the money, proceed to some more decided demonstration of
affection, I hastily stepped into the wagon, bade her good-by, and was
off.
We were still among the pines, which towered gigantically all around us,
but were no longer alone. Every tree was scarified for turpentine, and
the forest was alive with negro men and women gathering the 'last
dipping,' or clearing away the stumps and underbrush preparatory to the
spring work. It was Christmas week; but, as I afterwards learned, the
Colonel's negroes were accustomed to doing 'half tasks' at that season,
being paid for their labor as if they were free. They stopped their work
as we rode by, and stared at us with a sort of stupid, half-frightened
curiosity, very much like the look of a cow when a railway train is
passing. It needed but little observation to conclude that their
_status_ was but one step above the level of the brutes.
As we rode along I said to the driver, 'Scipio, what did you think of
our lodgings?'
'Mighty pore, massa. Niggas lib better'n dat.'
'Yes,' I replied, 'but these folks despise you blacks; they seem to be
both poor and proud.'
'Yas, massa, dey'm pore 'cause dey won't work, and dey'm proud 'cause
dey'r white. Dey won't work 'cause dey see de darky slaves doin' it, and
tink it am beneaf white folks to do as de darkies do. Dis habin' slaves
keeps dis hull country pore.'
'Who told you that?' I asked, astonished at hearing a remark showing so
much reflection from a negro.
'Nobody, massa, I see it myseff.'
'Are there many of these poor whites around Georgetown?'
'Not many 'round Georgetown, sar, but great many in de up-country har,
and dey'm all 'like--pore and no account; none ob 'em kin read, and dey
all eat clay.'
'Eat clay!' I said; 'what do you mean by that?'
'Didn't you see, massa, how yaller all dem wimmin war? Dat's 'cause dey
eat clay. De little children begin 'fore dey can walk, and dey eat it
till dey die; dey chaw it like 'backer. It makes all dar stumacs big,
like as you seed 'em, and spiles dar 'gestion. It am mighty onhealfy.'
'Can it be possible that human beings do such things! The brutes
wouldn't do that.'
'No, massa, but _dey_ do it; dey'm pore trash. Dat's what de big folks
call 'em, and it am true; dey'm long way lower down dan de darkies.'
By this time we had arrived at the run. We found the bridge carried
away, as the woman had told us; but its abutments were still standing,
and over these planks had been laid, which afforded a safe crossing for
foot-passengers. To reach these planks, however, it was necessary to
wade into the stream for full fifty yards, the 'run' having overflowed
its banks for that distance on either side of the bridge. The water was
evidently receding, but, as we could not well wait, like the man in the
fable, for it all to run by, we alighted, and counseled as to the best
mode of making the passage.
Scipio proposed that he should wade in to the first abutment, ascertain
the depth of the stream, and then, if it was not found too deep for the
horse to ford to that point, we would drive that far, get out, and walk
to the end of the planking, leading the horse, and then again mount the
wagon at the further end of the bridge. We were sure the horse would
have to swim in the middle of the current, and perhaps for a
considerable distance beyond; but, having witnessed his proficiency in
aquatic performances, we had no doubt of his getting safely across.
The darky's plan was decided on, and divesting himself of his trowsers,
he waded into the 'run' to take the soundings.
While he was in the water my attention was attracted to a printed paper,
posted on one of the pines near the roadside. Going up to it, I read as
follows:--
$250 REWARD.
Ran Away from the subscriber, on Monday, November 12th, his mulatto
man, SAM. Said boy is stout-built, five feet nine inches
high, 31 years old, weighs 170 lbs., and walks very erect, and with
a quick, rapid gait. The American flag is tattooed on his right arm
above the elbow. There is a knife-cut over the bridge of his nose,
a fresh bullet-wound in his left thigh, and his back bears marks of
a recent whipping. He is supposed to have made his way back to
Dinwiddie County, Va., where he was raised, or to be lurking in the
swamps in this vicinity.
The above reward will be paid for his confinement in any jail in
North or South Carolina, or Virginia, or for his delivery to the
subscriber on his plantation at ----. D. W. J----. ----, December
2, 1860.
The name signed to this hand-bill was that of the planter I was about to
visit.
Scipio having returned, reporting the stream fordable to the bridge, I
said to him, pointing to the 'notice,'--
'Read that, Scip.'
He read it, but made no remark.
'What does it mean--that fresh bullet wound, and the marks of a recent
whipping?' I asked.
'It mean, massa, dat de darky hab run away, and ben took; and dat when
dey took him dey shot him, and flogged him arter dat. Now, he hab run
away agin. De Cunnel's mighty hard on his niggas!'
'Is he! I can scarcely believe that.'
'He am, massa; but he ain't so much to blame, nuther; dey'm awful bad
set, most ob 'em,--so dey say.'
Our conversation was here interrupted by our reaching the bridge. After,
safely 'walking the plank,' and making our way to the opposite bank, I
resumed it by asking,--
'Why are the Colonel's negroes so particularly bad?'
'Cause, you see, massa, de turpentime business hab made great profits
for sum yars now, and de Cunnel hab been gettin' rich bery fass. He hab
put all his money, jes so fass as he made it, into darkies, so as to
make more; for he's got berry big plantation, and need nuffin' but
darkies to work it to make money jess like a gold mine. He goes up to
Virginny to buy niggas; and up dar _now_ dey don't sell none less dey'm
bad uns, 'cep when sum massa die or git pore. Virginny darkies dat cum
down har ain't gin'rally of much account. Dey'm either kinder
good-for-nuffin, or dey'm ugly; and de Cunnel d'rather hab de ugly dan
de no-account niggas.'
'How many negroes has he?'
''Bout two hundred, men and wimmin, I b'lieve, massa.'
'It can't be very pleasant for his family to remain in such an
out-of-the-way place, with such a gang of negroes about them, and no
white people near.'
'No, massa, not in dese times; but de missus and de young lady ain't dar
now.'
'Not there now? The Colonel said nothing to me about that. Are you
sure?'
'Oh yas, massa; I seed 'em go off on de boat to Charles'n most two weeks
ago. Dey don't mean to cum back till tings am more settled; dey'm 'fraid
to stay dar.'
'I should think it wouldn't be safe for even the Colonel there, if a
disturbance broke out among the slaves.'
''Twouldn't be safe den anywhar, sar; but de Cunnel am berry brave man.
He'm better dan twenty of _his_ niggas.'
'Why better than twenty of _his_ niggers?'
''Cause dem ugly niggas am gin'rally cowards. De darky dat is quiet,
'spectful, and does his duty, am de brave sort; _dey'll_ fight, massa,
till dey'm cut down.'
We had here reached a turn in the road, and passing it, came suddenly
upon a coach, attached to which were a pair of magnificent grays, driven
by a darky in livery.
'Hallo dar!' said Scipio to the driver, as we came nearly abreast of the
carriage. 'Am you Cunnel J----'s man?'
'Yas, I is dat,' replied the darky.
At this moment a woolley head, which I recognized at once as that of the
Colonel's man 'Jim,' was thrust out of the window of the vehicle.
'Hallo, Jim,' I said. 'How do you do? I'm glad to see you.'
'Lor bress me, massa K----, am dat you?' exclaimed the astonished negro,
hastily opening the door, and coming to me. 'Whar _did_ you cum from?
I'se mighty glad to see you;' at the same time giving my hand a hearty
shaking. I must here say, in justice to the reputation of South
Carolina, that no respectable Carolinian refuses to shake hands with a
black man, unless--the black happens to be free.
'I thought I wouldn't wait for you,' I replied. 'But how did you expect
to get on? the "runs" have swollen into rivers.'
'We got a "flat" made for dis one,--it's down dar by dis time,--de oders
we tought we'd get ober sumhow.'
BLACK FREEMASONRY.
'Jim, this is Scip,' I said, seeing that the darkies had taken no notice
of each other.
'How d'ye do, Scipio?' said Jim, extending his hand to him. A look of
singular intelligence passed over the faces of the two negroes as their
hands met; it vanished in an instant, and was so slight that none but a
close observer would have detected it, but some words that Scip had
previously let drop put me on the alert, and I felt sure it had a hidden
significance.
'Won't you get into de carriage, massa?' inquired Jim.
'No, thank you, Jim. I'll ride on with Scip. Our horse is jaded, and you
had better go ahead.'
Jim mounted the driver's seat, turned the carriage, and drove off at a
brisk pace to announce our coming at the plantation, while Scip and I
rode on at a slower gait.
'Scip, did you know Jim before?' I asked.
'Neber seed him afore, massa, but hab heern ob him.'
'How is it that you have lived in Georgetown for five years, and he only
seventy miles off, and you never have seen him?'
'I cud hab seed him, massa, good many time, ef I'd liked, but darkies
hab to be careful.'
'Careful of what?'
'Careful ob who dey knows; good many bad niggas 'bout.'
'Pshaw, Scip, you're "coming de possum;" that game won't work with me.
There isn't a better nigger than Jim in all South Carolina. I know him
well.'
'P'raps he am; reckon he _am_ a good enuff nigga.'
'Good enough nigga, Scip! Why, I tell you he's a splendid fellow; just
as true as steel. He's been North with the Colonel, often, and the
Abolitionists have tried to get him away; he knew he could go, but
wouldn't budge an inch.'
'I knew he wouldn't,' said the darky, a pleasurable gleam passing
through his eyes; 'dat sort don't run; dey face de music!'
'Why don't they run? What do you mean?'
'Nuffin', massa,--only dey'd ruther stay har.'
'Come, Scip, you've played this game long enough. Tell me, now, what
that look you gave each other when you shook hands meant.'
'What look, massa? Oh! I s'pose 'twar 'cause we'd both _heerd_ ob each
oder afore.'
''Twas more than that, Scip. Be frank; you know you can trust me.'
'Wal, den, massa,' he replied, adding, after a short pause, 'de ole
woman called you a Yankee,--you can guess.'
'If I should guess,'twould be that it meant _mischief_.'
'It don't mean mischief, sar,' said the darky, with a tone and air that
would not have disgraced a Cabinet officer; 'it mean only RIGHT
and JUSTICE.'
'It means that there is some secret understanding between you.'
'I tole you, massa,' he replied, relapsing into his usual manner, 'dat
de blacks am all Freemasons. I gabe Jim de grip, and he know'd me. He'd
ha known my name ef you hadn't tole him.'
'Why would he have known your name?'
''Cause I gabe de grip, dat tole him.'
'Why did he call you Scip_io_? I called you _Scip_.'
'Oh! de darkies all do dat. Nobody but de white folks call me _Scip_. I
can't say no more, massa; I SHUD BREAK DE OATH EF I DID!'
'You have said enough, Scipio, to satisfy me that there is a secret
league among the blacks, and that you are a leader in it. Now, I tell
you, you'll get yourself into a scrape. I've taken a liking to you,
Scip, and I should be _very sorry_ to see you run yourself into danger.'
'I tank you, massa, from de bottom ob my soul I tank you,' he said, as
the tears moistened his eyes. 'You bery kind, massa; it do me good to
talk wid you. But what am my life wuth? What am any _slave's_ life wuth?
Ef you war me you'd do like me!'
I could not deny it, and made no reply.
The writer of this article is aware that he is here making an important
statement, and one that may be called in question by those persons who
are accustomed to regard the Southern blacks as only reasoning brutes.
The great mass of them are but a little above the brutes in their habits
and instincts, but a large body are fully on a par, except in mere
book-education, with their white masters.
The conversation above recorded is, _verbatim et literatim_, TRUE. It
took place at the time indicated, and was taken down, as were other
conversations recorded in these papers, within twenty-four hours after
its occurrence. The name and the locality, only, I have, for very
evident reasons, disguised.
From this conversation, together with previous ones, held with the same
negro, and from after developments made to me at various places, and at
different times, extending over a period of six weeks, I became
acquainted with the fact--and I _know_ it to be a _fact_--that there
exists among the blacks a secret and wide-spread organization of a
Masonic character, having its grip, pass-word, and oath. It has various
grades of leaders, who are competent and _earnest_ men, and its ultimate
object is FREEDOM. It is quite as wide-spread, and much more
secret, than the order of the 'Knights of the Golden Circle,' the
kindred league among the whites.
This latter organization, which was instituted by John C. Calhoun,
William L. Porcher, and others, as far back as 1835, has for its sole
object the dissolution of the Union, and the establishment of a Southern
Empire;--Empire is the word, not Confederacy, or Republic;--and it was
solely by means of its secret but powerful machinery that the Southern
States were plunged into revolution, in defiance of the will of a
majority of their voting population.
Nearly every man of influence at the South (and many a pretended Union
man at the North) is a member of this organization, and sworn, under the
penalty of assassination, to labor, 'in season and out of season, by
fair means and by foul, at all times, and on all occasions,' for the
accomplishment of its object. The blacks are bound together by a similar
oath, and only _bide their time_.
The knowledge of the real state of political affairs, which the negroes
have acquired through this organization, is astonishingly accurate;
their leaders possess every essential of leadership,--except, it may be,
military skill,--and they are fully able to cope with the whites.
The negro whom I call Scipio, on the day when Major Anderson evacuated
Fort Moultrie, and before he or I knew of that event, which set all
South Carolina in a blaze, foretold to me the breaking out of this war
in Charleston harbor, and as confidently predicted that it would result
in the freedom of the slaves!
The knowledge of this organization I acquired by gaining the confidence
of some of the blacks, who knew me to be a Northern man, and supposed I
sympathized with them. Having acquired it in that manner, I could not
communicate it; but now, when our troops have landed in South Carolina,
and its existence is sure to be speedily developed, no harm can result
from this announcement.
The fact of its existing is not positively known (for the black is more
subtle and crafty than anything human), but is suspected, by many of the
whites; the more moderate of whom are disposed to ward off the impending
blow by some system of gradual emancipation,--declaring all black
children born after a certain date free,--or by some other action that
will pacify and keep down the slaves. These persons, however, are but a
small minority, and possess no political power, and the South is rushing
blindly on to a catastrophe, which, if not averted by the action of our
government, will make the horrors of San Domingo and the French
Revolution grow pale in history.
I say the action of our government, for with it rests the
responsibility. What the black wants is freedom. Give him that, and he
will have no incentive to insurrection. If emancipation is proclaimed at
the head of our armies,--emancipation for _all_--confiscation for the
slaves of rebels, compensation for the slaves of loyal citizens,--the
blacks will rush to the aid of our troops, the avenging angel will pass
over the homes of the many true and loyal men who are still left at the
South, and the thunderbolts of this war will fall only--where they
should fall--on the heads of its blood-stained authors. If this is not
done, after we have put down the whites we shall have to meet the
blacks, and after we have waded knee-deep in the blood of both, we shall
end the war where it began, but with the South desolated by fire and
sword, the North impoverished and loaded down with an everlasting debt,
and our once proud, happy and glorious country the by-word and scorn of
the whole civilized world.
I have all my life long been a true friend to the South. My connections,
my interests, and my sympathies are all there, and there are those now
in the ranks of this rebellion who are of my own blood; but I say, and I
would to God that every lover of his country would say it with me, 'Make
no peace with it until slavery is exterminated.' Slavery is its very
bones, marrow, and life-blood, and you can not put it down till you have
destroyed that accursed institution. If a miserable peace is patched up
before a death-stroke is given to slavery, it will gather new strength,
and drive freedom from this country forever. In the nature of things it
can not exist in the same hemisphere with liberty. Then let every man
who loves his country determine that if this war must needs last for
twenty years, it shall not end until this root of all our political
evils is weeded out forever.
A short half-hour took us to the plantation, where I found the Colonel
on the piazza awaiting me. After our greeting was over, noticing my
soiled and rather dilapidated condition, he inquired where I had passed
the night. I told him, when he burst into a hearty fit of laughter, and
for several days good-naturedly bantered me about 'putting up' at the
most aristocratic hotel in South Carolina,--the 'Mills House.'
We soon entered the mansion, and the reader will, I trust, excuse me, if
I leave him standing in its door-way till another month.
THE LESSON OF WAR.
Lex est, non poena, perire.--_Martial._
Ye warriors of the past, whose flashing swords
Light up with fitful gleams the misty night
Of half-forgotten eld, in fiery words
Ye teach a truth 'twere well we read aright.
God sends the gentle breeze to woo the flower,
And stir the pulses of the ripening corn;
He, too, lets loose the whirlwind's vengeful power
To quench the plagues of foul stagnation born.
And thus in love, sometimes disguised as wrath,
He sends his hidden blessings in the storm,
Which dashes down in its resistless path
The hoar abuses that defied reform.
When Cyrus ravaged fair Chaldea's plain,
And mocked the strength of Babylon's haughty wall,
The proud Assyrian's guilt had earned the chain,
And man rejoiced to mark the oppressor's fall.
And when, made drunk with power, the Persian lost
The stern and simple virtues of his sires,
His empire's ruin and his slaughtered host
Kindled in Greece her world-illuming fires.
Then Greece, her swift career of glory stayed,
Exhausted by her madman's triumphs lay,
Till Rome's protecting arm the loss repaid
Of Corinth's sack and Pydua's fatal day.
Imperial Rome! though crime succeeded crime
As earth fell prostrate 'neath her giant tread,
Still shall her subjects reap to endless time
The priceless harvests by her wisdom spread.
What though the stern proconsul's grinding rule
Close followed on the legion's merciless sword?
Laws, arts, and culture, in that rigid school,
Evoked a nation from each savage horde.
And when at last her crimes, reacting, wrought
Their curse upon herself, to her, supine
And helpless, the barbarian spoiler brought,
With fire and sword, new life to her decline.
Theodoric, Clovis, Charles, your endless strife,
From Weser's marsh to Naples' laughing bay,
Was but the throe that marked the nascent life
Emerging from the worn-out world's decay.
Ye were, amid that elemental war,
But straws to show its course. Ye toiled, and won,
Or lost; your people bled--yet slow and far
The mighty cause of man pressed ever on.
Long has that travail been. Kings, Kaisers, Popes,
The stern Crusader and the pirate Dane,
Each, centered in his own ambitious hopes,
But helped the cause he labored to restrain.
Hildebrand's voice sets Christendom on fire;
'Neath Frederic's plow sinks Milan's lofty wall;
Unnumbered victims glut De Montfort's ire;
From Ecclin's dungeon shrieks the night appall.
If the tide ebbs, 'tis but to flow again.
Each fierce convulsion gains some vantage ground.
Man's fettered limbs grow stronger, and the chain
Falls link by link at each tumultuous bound.
The timid burgher dons the helm and shield,
The wretched hind reluctant grasps the bow,
To fight their master's quarrels. Courtrai's field
And Sempach's hill that lesson's worth may show.
The restless soul still yearns for things unknown;
It chafes against its bondage, points the way
That leads to freedom, but the sword alone
Makes good the dreams that else would but betray.
See, Luther speaks, and Europe flies to arms:
Her stubborn fight outlasts a hundred years;
A thousand fields her richest life-blood warms,
Yet gain the vanquished more than pays their tears.
If Orange and Gustavus conquering died,
Not Coligny nor Hampden fell in vain,
For one domain escaped the furious tide,
And peace made that one desolate--chivalrous Spain!
So, when the traitorous truth was whispered round,--
Equality for man on earth as heaven,--
It was but speculation's idlest sound,
Till by the sword the time-worn bonds were riven.
Though Moscow, Leipzig, Waterloo, might seem
To roll the tide back, they but marked its flood;
Nor could the Holy Allies' darkest scheme
Restore the wrongs so well effaced in blood.
The end is not yet. God's mysterious way
Evolves its purpose in its destined time.
Vainly we seek its fated march to stay:
All things subserve it--wisdom, folly, crime.
We are his instruments. The past has fled
For us. We suffer for the future dim.
Then sternly face the darkness round us spread,
Do each his duty--leave the rest to Him!
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
The Nineteenth Century dawned upon a nation already glorious with the
sublime promise of a prophetic infancy. The strong serpents of Tyranny
and Superstition had been crushed in its powerful grasp. The songs of
two oceans--the lullaby of its earlier days--had cheered it on to a
youth whose dignity and beauty were bought with sword and rifle, with
blood and death. Wrapped at last in the _toga_ of an undisputed manhood,
it took its place among the empires of the earth, the son of a king,
mightier than all; free to enact new laws, to promulgate new systems of
economy, social and political, free to worship and to think. With what
success a government grounded on a principle so faultless has been
administered, may not now be written, but is not more doubtful than it
was when the drum beat its _reveillé_ only on our distant frontiers, and
the booming of guns from ship or shore was but the nation's welcome to
days made memorable by its great men. But before the new republic
stretched a vast field for thought, and within its almost boundless
limits, hidden beneath the husks of old theories, lay the seed ready for
the ripening. Far back toward the east rolled, like a mighty desert, the
history of the Progress of Mind. Here and there, on its arid surface,
rose, stately and awe-inspiring, great pyramids which marked those eras
of agitation when Humanity, awaking suddenly to her power, grappled with
giant strength the mighty enigmas of Being, and endeavored to wrench
from their mute souls the great secrets that Faith alone has expounded
to the satisfaction of her devotees. It availed little that one by one,
in the vaults of these temples, the axioms and deductions of their
founders were laid away lifeless and powerless. Another generation,
vigorous and persevering, laid stone after stone the foundations of
another edifice that strove to reach, with its yearning apex of desire,
the very heavens. Still high and unmoved curved the blue infinitude
above, while below its mirror in the soul of man surged wildly against
shores stern, rock-bound, immutable, unanswering.
The 'limits of the forefathers' (_fines quos posuerunt patres nostri_)
had been first transgressed by Abelard, and the speculating spirit of
Scholasticism disseminated by him overwhelmed Europe with that rage for
investigations, so futile yet so laborious, that terrified the
theologians of the mediæval church, and marked the first modern epoch in
Philosophy--the beginning of the revolt of Reason against Authority.
Next, colossal against the still unrelenting skies, towered what may be
called the _Natur-Philosophie_, 'Nature Philosophy' of Giordano Bruno.
The echoes of Luther's bugle still pierced the mountain-fastnesses of
Northern Italy and the gorges of Spain. In the church, Bruno found only
skepticism and licentiousness, ignorance and tyranny. Before him four
centuries had been swallowed up in debate on the fruitless question of
Nominalism, and others equally insignificant, but were visible to him by
the light of a logic so shallow, futile, and despotic, that it was known
only to be scorned. With an energy that astonished the feeble and
degraded clergy of his time, a fearlessness that exacted the admiration
while it aroused the indignation of his contemporaries, and a genius
that compelled the attention of those who were most zealous to combat
its evidences, Bruno, casting off the shackles of the cloister, that
'_prigione angusta e nera_,' boldly advanced a system of Philosophy,
startling, in those Inquisitorial times, from its independence, and
horrible from its antagonism to Aristotle, the Atlas of the church. This
was no less than pure Pantheism,--God in and through all, the infinite
Intelligence. _Deus est monadum monas--nempe entium entitas_. This
creed, by an incomprehensible metamorphosis, was styled, in the language
of the day, Atheism; its promulgation, even its conception, was
pronounced a crime whose penalty was death. And Bruno, who, from the
depths of infamous superstition, had risen into the pure light of
heaven, to a theory whose principles, though they might not satisfy,
could not fail to refine, elevate, and encourage the soul long groveling
in the mire of ignorance, or languishing in the dark dungeons of
Scholasticism,--Bruno died for the truth. More foolish than the savages
of whom Montesquieu speaks, who cut down trees to reach their fruit,
these judges of Bruno destroyed the tree whose seeds were already strewn
broadcast over the world. They hushed forever the voice whose echoes are
not yet stilled,--echoes that resound in the cautious _Meditations_ of
Descartes, that rise from peak to peak of the majestic method of the
great Spinoza, who was no less a martyr because reputation and not life
was the forfeit of his earnestness; and that vibrate with thrilling
sweetness in the Idealism of Schelling. 'The perfect theory of Nature,'
says Schelling, 'is that by virtue of which all Nature is resolved into
the intellectual element,' which 'intellectual element' is at once
composed of intuitions and is the source of intuitions,--the _Deus in
nobis_ of Giordano Bruno. 'It is evident,' he continues, 'that Nature is
originally identical with that which in us is recognized as the subject
and the object.'
Thus the empirical school, in its representative, Aristotle, met in the
martyr of Nola an opponent vigilant, earnest, powerful. And while the
legitimate prosecution of the former mode of philosophizing has led to
deism, skepticism, atheism, and materialism, it is to those who have
retained in methods, more mathematically clear and more perfectly
developed than that which Bruno disseminated, but still bearing, as
their key-note, the one great idea of his bold crusade,--to those we
must look for all that is most pure, most noble, in Philosophy: a system
or succession of systems whose primitive idea--substance and essence--is
the very God for a supposed denial of whom Bruno died. '_Cosi vince
Goffredo!_'
Thus rolled on the centuries. Germany, France, England, and Scotland had
each contributed her knights to the great tournament of Mind. And now
the first symptoms of agitation appeared on the hitherto unruffled
surface of Thought in the New World. Still panting after her victories,
scarcely used to her new freedom, at first the presence of a power
antagonistic to the orthodox faith was unsuspected even by those who
first entertained it. But the stone had been dashed into the tranquil
ocean when the May-flower was moored on the New England coast, and its
circling eddies drew curve after curve among the descendants, brave,
conscientious, energetic, of the old Puritans. The stern Calvinism, by
which their fathers had lived and died, was, by these early recreants,
first mistrusted, then questioned, and finally abjured. The murmurs of
dissent that had long agitated the sturdy upholders of the accepted
faith, broke out in a demand for a system whose claims should be less
absolute, and whose nature should satisfy those fugitive appeals to
Reason and the Understanding, that, weak indeed, and faint, were yet
distinctly audible to the thinkers of the day. From the cloud of
accusation and denial, of suspicion and trial, the new Perseus,
Unitarianism,--whilom a nursling of Milton, Locke, and Hartley,--was
born, and took its place among the sects, sustained by the few, dreaded
and condemned by the many.
To brand this new theory, no terms were found too strong even by the
religious periodicals of the day. Unwilling to bide their time, to test
its soundness by its strength and duration, its opponents rested not. It
was confidently predicted that the movement would influence its
followers to skepticism and atheism. The accusation of the sixteenth
century was revived, and St. Bernards cried from pulpit and press, 'The
limits of the forefathers have been transgressed!' To the great mass of
the opposition, the horror was not that Trinitarianism had been
assailed, but that men had been found so bold as to question it. The
crime with the unlearned and the majority of the professors was not
heresy, but daring. But Christians, fervent and earnest, were not
wanting who denounced the movement in its anticipated consequences. The
young and adventurous, the men of impulse and daring, would drift, it
was feared, to the very borders of open infidelity. But the contrary was
the result. A pietism the very reverse was developed, which, aided by
the beloved Channing, was disseminated through New England. Justice
Story even asserted that in Unitarianism he found refuge from the
skepticism to which in youth he had tended.
Permitted, by the liberal character of the welcome substitute for a
theology that had become too stringent for the age, to prosecute their
researches into fields hitherto forbidden to the orthodox, thinkers,
economists, statesmen and theologians gathered round the standard, and a
new impulse was given to the intellectual character of the times. A
revolution in Thought was impending.
In Literature we dared challenge the nations. The popularity of Cooper
was at its high noon. Irving, with the graphic and delicate strokes of
his sympathetic pencil, had written himself the Claude Lorraine among
_litterateurs_; and Prescott, with his sentences of granite, was
building himself an immortal name. Still, we were behind Germany, and
even France, in that wide comprehension and universal criticism that
determines more accurately than its politics the real _status_ of a
nation. These elements were now to be supplied. Carlyle had played in
England the _rôle_ so humorously yet thoroughly enacted in Germany by
Heine, and so gracefully and airily performed in France by Cousin. He
had _popularized_ the philosophers. Without the acute, electric
perceptions of the great German or the industry and amiable vanities of
that De Sevigné among philosophers, Cousin, he presented, by fierce
dashes of his crayon, black, blunt, and bluff, to the hitherto ignorant
British public, some phases of the great metaphysical bearings of the
age upon Literature and Art, as developed in Teutonic poetry and prose.
In a word, he familiarized his readers with the _Æsthetik_ of Germany.
He published in 1830 his _Sartor Resartus_, which, clothing the man in
'_der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid_,' usurped for him at once an office not
inferior to that of the _Erd-geist_ in _Faust_. The shrill notes of the
bagpipe of the critic of Craigenputtock blew across the mountains and
valleys of his island home, rousing the judge on the bench, and,
penetrating the long halls of Cambridge and Oxford, streamed yet
distinct and powerful to our shores. Astonished by the richness and
fullness of a literature so comprehensive, which seemed to inclose in
its brilliant mazes all that their meagre and unfruitful dogmas denied
of comfort to the heart and systematic development to the mind, the men
who, with girded loins and scrips in their hands, had long wandered
disconsolately on the shores of a seething ocean, now saw its waters
parted, and crossed upon dry ground. Before them stretched the vast
wilderness of German Philosophy. To their bewildered gaze, each system
was an Arabia Felix, and every axiom a graceful palm.
Meanwhile, a second influence was at work among the orthodox, an
influence that tended to the same great result, no longer an accident,
but a necessity of the age. The _Biographia Literaria_ and _The Friend_
of Coleridge, embodying a dwarfed but not distorted version of the
metaphysical system of Kant, which had created a profound sensation in
England, met with an even more enthusiastic reception in this country.
The Christian character of their author was beyond reproach, his genius
undisputed; as a poet he ranked among those to whom Great Britain owed
the laurel; and as an essayist, even the bitterest critics yielded him
the palm. When, therefore, this man, one of the most evangelical of his
time in the Established Church, brought to the aid of a time-honored and
beloved theology the principles of that very philosophy which was deemed
by others its fiercest antagonist, not a few who had been hitherto
deterred from its investigation by a dread of the accusation of heresy,
eagerly availed themselves of his labors. His _Aids to Reflection_ was
presented to the American public under the patronage of Dr. Marsh, late
president of Burlington College, Vt. An elaborate preliminary essay by
this eminently pious clergyman established the claims of the work to
favor, and it was even taken up as a text-book in Amherst and one or two
liberal Congregational universities in New England.
The effort of Coleridge, rendered obscure by his turgid and florid
style, was to explain the religious doctrines of Archbishop Leighton and
the early Puritans, which he held as orthodox, by means of the momentous
distinction between Reason and the Understanding, which he borrowed from
the _Critik der Reinen Vernunft_ of Kant. However plausible, when
disencumbered of its poetical drapery, the theory of Coleridge may be,
and however convincing, _so far as it goes_, of the truth of his
principles, we can not forget that the final tendency of the critical
philosophy of Kant is, if not a positive approach to skepticism, at
least to afford a scientific basis for it. But the formula of the author
of Christabel was the pure exponent of his creed. The terror of
metaphysics vanished as the oft-repeated words met the eye of the wary
and suspicious investigator. 'World--God = 0: God--world = Reality
Absolute. The world without God is nothing: God without the world is
already, in and of himself, absolute perfection, absolute authority.'
Thus, while Carlyle, bold, versatile, shrewd, untrammeled, worked upon
the Unitarian element in America, Coleridge, evangelical, polished, yet
adventurous, leavened the Congregationalists and other shades of
orthodox Christians with the same result. But the first literary
outgrowth and original product of the Transcendental movement in America
was Emerson's Essay on Nature, which ap
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/18977