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The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864

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Title: The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864

Author: Various


        
Release date: December 3, 2007 [eBook #23689]

Language: English

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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.



  VOL. VI.--NOVEMBER, 1864--No. V.




THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES.


There are three classes of persons in the loyal States of this Union who
proclaim the present civil war unnecessary, and clamor for peace at any
price: first, a multitude of people, so ignorant of the history of the
country that they do not know what the conflict is about; secondly, a
smaller class of better-informed citizens, who have no moral
comprehension of the inevitable opposition of democracy and aristocracy,
free society and slave society, and who believe sincerely that a
permanent compromise or trade can be negotiated between these opposing
forces in human affairs; thirdly, a clique of demagogues, who are trying
to use these two classes of people to paralyze the Government, and force
it into a surrender to the rebels on such terms as they choose to
dictate: their separation from the United States or recall to their old
power in a restored and reconstructed Union.

It will be my purpose, in this article, to show the complete fallacy of
this notion, by presenting the facts concerning the progress of the
different portions of our country in the American idea of liberty during
the years preceding this war. The census of 1860, if honestly studied,
must convince any unprejudiced man, at home or abroad, that the Slave
Power deliberately brought this war upon the United States, to save
itself from destruction by the irresistible and powerful growth of free
society in the Union. This war had the same origin and necessity of
every great conflict between the people and the aristocracy since the
world began.

Every war of this kind in history has been the result of the advancement
of the people in liberty. Now the people have inaugurated the conflict
against the aristocracy, either in the interest of self-government, or
an imperial rule which should virtually rest upon their suffrage. Now
the aristocracy has risen upon the people, who were becoming too strong
and free, to conquer and govern them through republican or monarchical
forms of society. There has always been an irrepressible conflict
between aristocracy and democracy; in times of peace carried on by all
the agencies of popular advancement; but in every nation finally
bursting into civil war. And every such war, however slow its progress,
or uncertain its immediate consequence, has finally left the mass of
the people nearer liberty than it found them.

The northern Grecian states represented the cause of the people; and the
oriental empires the cause of the few. These little states grew so
rapidly that the despots of Asia became alarmed, and organized gigantic
expeditions to destroy them. At Marathon and Salamis, the people's cause
met and drove back the mighty invasion; and two hundred years later,
under the lead of Alexander, dissolved every Asiatic empire, from the
Mediterranean to the Euphrates, to its original elements.

Julius Caesar destroyed the power of the old Roman aristocracy in the
interest of the people of the Roman empire. Under the name of 'The
Republic,' that patrician class had oppressed the people of Rome and her
provinces for years as never was people oppressed before. After fifty
years of civil war, Julius and Augustus Caesar organized the masses of
this world-wide empire, and established a government under which the
aristocracy was fearfully worried, but which administered such, justice
to the world as had never before been possible.

The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which
involved the whole of Europe for eighty years, were begun by the civil
and religious aristocracy of Europe to crush the progress of religious
and civil liberty among the people. These wars continued until religious
freedom was established in Germany, Holland, and Great Britain, and
those seeds of political liberty sown that afterward sprang up in the
American republic.

The English civil wars of the seventeenth century were begun by the king
and great nobles to suppress the rising power of the commons, and
continued till constitutional liberty was practically secured to all the
subjects of the British empire.

The French Revolution was the revolt of the people of France against one
of the most cruel and tyrannical aristocracies that ever reigned; and
continued, with brief interruptions, till the people of both France and
Italy had vindicated the right to choose their emperors by popular
suffrage.

During the half century between the years 1775 and 1825, every people in
North America had thrown off the power of a foreign aristocracy by war,
and established a republican form of government, except the Canadas,
which secured the same practical results by more peaceful methods.

The historian perceives that each of these great wars was an inevitable
condition of liberty for the people, and has exalted their condition. In
all these struggles there were the same kinds of opponents to the war:
the ignorant, who knew nothing about it; the morally indifferent, who
could not see why freemen and tyrants could not agree to live together
in amity; and the demagogues, who were willing to ruin the country to
exalt themselves. But we now understand that only through these red
gates of war could the peoples of the world have marched up to their
present enjoyment of liberty; that each naming portal is a triumphal
arch, on which is inscribed some great conquest for mankind.

The present civil war in the United States is the last frantic attempt
of this dying feudal aristocracy to save itself from inevitable
dissolution. The election of Mr. Lincoln as President of the United
States, in 1860, by the vote of every Free State, was the announcement
to the world that the people of the United States had finally and
decisively conquered the feudal aristocracy of the republic after a
civil contest of eighty years. With no weapons but those placed in their
hands by the Constitution of the United States, the freemen of the
republic had practically put this great slave aristocracy under their
feet forever. That portion of the Union which was controlled by the will
of the whole people had become so decidedly superior in every attribute
of power and civilization, that the slave aristocracy despaired of
further peaceful resistance to the march of liberty through the land.
Like every other aristocracy that has lived, it drew the sword on the
people, either to subdue the whole country, or carry off a portion of
it, to be governed in the interests of an oligarchy.

This great people was not plunged into civil war by unfriendly talking,
or by the unfriendly legislation of the Northern people, or by the
accidental election of Abraham Lincoln as President. Nations do not go
to war for hard words or trifling acts of unfriendliness or accidental
political changes; although these may be the ostensible causes of
war--the sparks that finally explode the magazine. There was a real
cause for this rebellion--_the peaceful, constitutional triumph of the
people over the aristocracy of the republic, after a struggle of eighty
years_. If ever a great oligarchy had good reason to fight, it was the
Slave Power in 1860. It found itself defeated and condemned to a
secondary position in the republic, with the assurance that its death
was only a question of time. It is always a good cause of war to an
aristocracy that its power is abridged; for an aristocracy cares only
for itself, and honestly regards its own supremacy as the chief interest
on earth. This Slave Power has only done what every such power has done
since the foundation of the world. It has drawn the sword against the
inevitable progress of mankind, and will be conquered by mankind. It is
waging this terrible war, not against Northern Abolitionists, or the
present Administration, _but against the United States census tables of
1860_; against the mighty realities of the progress of free society in
the republic, which have startled us all; but with which no class of men
were so well acquainted as Mr. Jefferson Davis and his associates in
rebellion.

There has always been a conflict in our country between this old slave
aristocracy and the people. The first great victory of the people was in
the war of the Revolution. That war was inaugurated and forced upon the
country by the masses of the people of the New England and Middle
States. The aristocracy of the South, with their associates in the
North, resisted the movement to separate the people from the crown of
Great Britain, till resistance was impossible, and then came in, to some
extent, to lead the movement and appropriate the rewards of success. But
the free people of the North brought on and sustained the war.
Massachusetts was then the fourth province in population; but she sent
eight thousand more soldiers to the field during those bloody eight
years than all the Southern States united. Virginia was then the empire
State of the Union, and Rhode Island the least; but great, aristocratic
Virginia furnished only seven hundred more soldiers than little,
democratic Rhode Island. New England furnished more than half the troops
raised during the Revolution; and the great centres of aristocracy in
the Middle and Southern States were the stronghold of Toryism during the
war. Indeed, a glance at the map of the Eastern and Middle States
reveals the fact that the headquarters of the 'peace party' in the
Revolutionary and the present war are in precisely the same localities.
The 'Copperhead' districts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are
the old Tory districts of the Revolution. The Tories of that day, with
the mass of the Southern aristocracy, tried to 'stop the war' which was
to lay the foundations of the freedom of all men. The Tories of to-day
are engaged in the same infamous enterprise, and their fate will be the
same.

Had the Slave Power been united in 1776, we should never have gained our
independence. But it was divided. Every State was nominally a Slave
State; but slaveholders were divided into two classes. The first was led
by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other illustrious aristocrats,
North and South; and, like the Liberal lords of Great Britain, threw
their influence on the side of the people. This party, very strong in
Virginia, very weak in the Carolinas, dragged the South through the war
by the hair of its head; and compelled it to come into the Union. It
also resolved to abolish the Slave Power, and succeeded in consecrating
the whole Northwestern territory to freedom as early as 1790. The
opposition party had its headquarters at Charleston, was treasonable or
luke-warm during the war, and refused to come into the Union without
guarantees for slavery.

The result of the whole struggle was, that the people of the thirteen
colonies, with the help of a portion of their aristocracy, severed the
country from Great Britain, and established a Government by which they,
the people, believed themselves able, in time, to control the whole
Union, and secure personal liberty in every State. For 'the compromises
of the Constitution' mean just this: that our National Government was a
great arena on which aristocracy and democracy could have a free fight.
If the aristocracy beat, that Government would be made as despotic as
South Carolina; if the democracy triumphed, it would become as free as
Massachusetts. That was what the people had never before achieved: _a
free field to work for a Christian democracy_. God bless the sturdy
people of New England and the Middle States for this! God bless George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and the liberal gentlemen
of the Old Dominion, for helping the people do it. They did not win the
victory, as many have supposed; but they bravely helped to lead the
people of the Free States to this great military and civil achievement.
Virginia was richly paid for the service of her aristocracy. But history
tells us who did the work, and how nobly it was done.

The republic was now established, with a Constitution which might be
made to uphold a democratic or an aristocratic government, as either
party should triumph. The Slave Power, forced half reluctantly into the
Union, now began to conspire to rule it for its own uses. All that was
necessary, it thought, was to unite the aristocracy against the people.
And this work was at once well begun. The first census was taken in
1790, and the last in 1860. This period divides itself, historically,
into two portions. The thirty years from 1780 may be regarded as the
period of the _consolidation of the Slave Power, and its first distinct
appearance as a great sectional aristocracy in 1820, in the struggle
that resulted in the 'Missouri Compromise_.' The forty years succeeding
1820 may be called the period of the _consolidation of freedom to resist
this assault, and the final triumph of democracy in 1860, by the
election of a President_.

The first thirty years was a period of incessant activity by the slave
aristocracy. It incurred a nominal loss in the abolition of slavery in
eight Eastern and Middle States, and the consecration of the great
Northwestern territory to freedom; out of which three great Free States
had already been carved; making, in 1820, eleven Free States. But it had
gained by the concentration of its power below the line of the Ohio and
Pennsylvania boundary, the division of the territory belonging to the
Carolinas, and the Louisiana purchase; whereby it had gained five new
Slave States; making the number of Slave States equal to the
Free--eleven. It put forward the liberal aristocracy of Virginia to
occupy the Presidential chair during thirty-two of the thirty-six years
between 1789 and 1825; thus compelling Virginia and Maryland to a firm
alliance with itself. It had man[oe]uvred the country through a great
political struggle and a foreign war, both of which were chiefly
engineered to secure the consolidation of the slave aristocracy. In
1820 its power was extended in eleven States, containing four hundred
and twenty-four thousand square miles, with one hundred and seventy-nine
thousand square miles of territory sure to come in as Slave States; and
the remainder of the Louisiana purchase not secure to liberty. It had a
white population only seven hundred thousand less, while its white and
black population was a million more than all the Free States.

The North was barely half as large in area of States: two hundred and
seventy thousand square miles, with only one hundred thousand square
miles in reserve of the territory dedicated to liberty. With an equality
of representation in the Senate of the United States, and a firm hold of
all the branches of the Government, the prospect of the oligarchy for
success was brilliant. In every nation the aristocracy first gets
possession, organizes first, and proceeds deliberately to seize and
administer the government. The people are always unsuspicious, slow,
late in organizing, and seem to blunder into success or be led to it by
a Providence higher than themselves. In this Government the slave
aristocracy first consolidated, and in 1820 appeared boldly on the
arena, claiming the superiority, and threatening ruin to the republic in
the event of the failure of their plans. It had managed so well that
there was now no division in its ranks, and for the last forty years has
moved forward in solid column to repeated assaults on liberty.

The people, as usual, did not suspect the existence of this concentrated
power till 1820. They made a brave militia fight then against the
aristocracy, and compelled it to acknowledge a drawn battle by the
admission of Maine to balance Missouri, and the establishment of a line
of compromise, which would leave all territory north of 36 deg. 30'
consecrated to freedom. The Slave Power submitted with anger, intending
to break the bargain as soon as it was strong enough, and continued on
its relentless struggle for power. It determined to gain possession of
the Senate of the United States; make it a house of nobles; control
through it the foreign policy, the Executive, and the Supreme Court;
and, with this advantage, reckoned it could always manage the House of
Representatives and govern the nation. The key to all the political
policy of the Slave Power through these last forty years is this
endeavor to capture the Senate of the United States, and hold it, by
bringing in a superior _number_ of Slave States. So well did it play
this card that, till 1850, it maintained an equality of senatorial
representation, and, by the help of Northern allies and the superior
political dexterity of the aristocracy, controlled our foreign policy;
kept its own representatives in all the great courts of Europe; made
peace or war at will; managed the Executive through a veto on his
appointments; and endeavored to fill the Supreme Court with men in favor
of its policy, while the House of Representatives never was able to pass
a measure without its consent. Under the past forty years' reign of the
Slave Power, the Senate of the United States has been a greater farce in
the republic than the crown and House of Lords in the British empire.
Indeed, so well did this aristocracy play its part, _that it was
supposed by the whole world to be the American Government_; and the news
that the people of the United States had refused, in 1860, to register
its behests, was received abroad with the same astonishment and
indignation as if there had been a revolt of the subjects of any
European nation against their anointed rulers.

But spite of these great advantages at the outset--spite of its
incredible political activity and admirable concentration, the slave
aristocracy was finally defeated by the people. How this was done is the
most interesting narrative in modern history. Never has the intrinsic
superiority of a democratic over an aristocratic order of society been
so magnificently vindicated as during the last forty years of our
national career. During that period the free portion of this Union has
grown to an overwhelming superiority over the slave portion, and
compelled the slaveholders to draw the sword to save themselves from
material and providential destruction.

This period of forty years may be regarded as that of the _consolidation
of the people_. The first thirty years of it was the era of their
_industrial and social consolidation_; the last ten years has been the
period of their _political union against the Slave Power_.

An aristocracy always exhibits the uttermost pitch of human policy in
its career, and amazes and outwits society by its marvellous display of
executive ability. But the people are always moved by great supernatural
forces that are beyond their comprehension, often disowned or scorned by
them, but which mould their destiny and lead them to a victory spite of
themselves. The people always grow without conscious plan or method, and
rarely know their own strength. But there are always a few great men who
represent their destiny, and, often against their will, direct them in
the path to liberty. History will record the names of three great men
who, during the last forty years, have been the most notable figures in
this consolidation of the people in this republic; three men that the
implacable hatred of the Slave Power has singled out from all other
Northern men as special objects of infamy; men who represent the
industrial, moral, and political phases of the people's growth to
supremacy. Each came when he was wanted, and faithfully did his work;
and their history is the chronicle of this advance of liberty in the
republic.

The first of these men was De Witt Clinton, of New York. No Northern man
so early discovered the deep game of the Slave Power as he. He was the
ablest statesman of the North in the days when the aristocracy of the
South was just effecting its consolidation. He was a prominent candidate
for the Presidency, and was scornfully put down by the power that ruled
at Richmond. The slaveholders knew him for their clear-headed enemy, and
drove him out of the arena of national politics. Never was political
defeat so auspicious. Cured of the political ambition of his youth, Mr.
Clinton turned the energies of his massive genius to the _industrial
consolidation of the North_. He saw that all future political triumph of
liberty must rest on the triumph of free labor. He anticipated the
coming greatness of the Northwest, and boldly devoted his life to the
inauguration of that system of internal improvements which has made the
Northern States the mighty, free industrial empire it now is. Within the
period of ten years lying nearest 1820, the people, under the lead of
Clinton and his associates, had brought into active operation the three
great agencies of free labor--the steamer, the canal, the railroad;
while our manufacturing industry dates from the same period.

This was the providential movement of a great people, organizing a
method of labor which should overthrow the American aristocracy. Of
course the people did not know what all this meant; thousands of the men
who were foremost in organizing Northern industry did not suspect the
end; but De Witt Clinton knew. The wiseacres of the city of New York
nicknamed his canal 'Clinton's Ditch.' It was the first ditch in that
series of continental 'parallels' by which the people of the North have
approached the citadel of the Slave Power. They have dug in those vast
intrenchments for forty years, to such purpose that in 1860 the great
guns of free labor commanded every plantation in the Union. Pardon them,
then, O lieutenant-generals of the slavery forces, if they still think
well of the spade that has dug their highway to power. The Northern
spade is a slow machine--but it will yet shovel the slave aristocracy
into the Gulf of Mexico as sure as God lives!

Glance over this field of industrial and material growth in the free
portion of the Union, as it appeared in 1860.

At that time the Free States had increased to nineteen, while the Slave
States were fifteen, containing eight hundred and seventy-five thousand
square miles. The people had nine hundred and fifty thousand square
miles organized into free-labor States, with eight vast Territories,
containing one million square miles, an area equal to twenty-four States
as large as New York. In this vast extent of States and Territories,
including two thirds the land of the Union, there were not a hundred
slaves. _The Government holds all those States and Territories to-day._

Look at the position and value of these possessions of freedom. In 1850
liberty secured the great State of California, and in 1860 the State of
Kansas. These States insure the possession of the whole Pacific coast,
the entire mineral wealth of the mountains, the Indian Territory, and
the vast spaces of Northwestern Texas to freedom, and open Mexico to
Northern occupation. In the East, freedom had already secured the best
harbors for commerce; in the Northwest, the granary of the world; the
inexhaustible mineral wealth of Lake Superior, and the navigation of
thousands of miles upon the great inland seas that separate the republic
from the Canadas. From the Northern Atlantic and the Pacific it
commanded the trade of Europe and Asia. This region embraces the best
climates of the continent for the habitation of a vigorous race of men,
and contains all the elements of imperial power.

Freedom had secured, in 1860, a population of twenty millions, while the
Slave Power had reached but twelve millions, one third of whom were
slaves. From 1850 to 1860 the Union _gained_ almost as much in
population as the entire census of 1820; and of that gain the North
secured forty-one and the South but twenty-seven per cent. The slave
population increased but twenty-three per cent. At this rate of increase
the year 1900 will see a population of one hundred millions in the
Union, of whom nine millions will be negroes, and a vast majority of the
white population located in territory now free. Between 1820 and 1860
five million emigrants reenforced the Union, of which the North received
the greater portion. Between the war of 1814 and 1860, Great Britain and
Ireland sent to us more people than inhabited the thirteen States that
formed the Union, and of this immigrant population there was an excess
of nine hundred and fifty thousand _men_--a nation poured in upon the
great, free North, to reenforce the people.

Already was this increase of free population telling upon slave labor in
Slave States. Even in the Gulf cities Sambo was fast receding before the
brawny arms of Hans and Patrick. Northwestern Texan was becoming a new
Germany. Western Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware were rapidly
losing in slave labor; while along the border had grown up a line of ten
cities in Slave States, containing six hundred thousand people, of whom
less than ten thousand were slaves. This line of cities, from Wilmington
Delaware, to St. Louis, Missouri, was becoming a great cordon of
free-labor citadels; supported in the rear by another line of Free
Border-State cities, stretching from Philadelphia to Leavenworth,
containing nine hundred thousand; thus _massing a free population of one
million five hundred thousand in border cities that overlooked the land
of despotism_.

Then consider the growth of free agriculture. In 1860 the South had a
cotton and rice crop as her exclusive possession. Already the Northwest
was encroaching upon her sugar cultivation. Against her agriculture,
mainly supported by one great staple, which can also be cultivated all
round the globe, the free North could oppose every variety of crop;
several of greater value than the boasted cotton. In all the grains, in
cattle and the products of the dairy, in hay, in fruits; in the superior
cultivation of land; in the vastly superior value of land; in
agricultural machinery, probably representing a labor force equal to all
the slaves--the superiority of freedom was too evident for discussion.
_The value of agricultural machinery in the Free States had trebled
between 1850 and 1860_. The Homestead Law was the fit result of this
vast advance of free labor, and has sealed the destiny of every present
and future Territory of the Union.

Then contemplate the vast expansion of manufacturing industry, of which
nine tenths belong to the Free States. _In ten years from 1850 to 1860,
this branch of labor had increased eighty-six per cent._, reaching the
enormous sum of $2,000,000,000; $60 for every inhabitant of the Union. A
million and a half of people were engaged as operatives therein,
supporting nearly five millions--one sixth the whole population of the
Union; while fully one third our population may be said to directly and
indirectly live by manufactures.

The increase of iron manufactures in ten years was forty-four per cent.;
the coal mines reached a treble yield in ten years; $10,000,000, of
clothing were produced in 1860. The lumber trade had increased
sixty-four percent, in ten years, reaching $100,000,000. Flouring mills
showed sixty-five per cent, increase, reaching $225,000,000; spirits,
$24,000,000; cotton manufactures had increased seventy-six per cent, in
ten years, reaching $115,000,000; woollens had increased sixty-seven per
cent.; boots and shoes walked up to $76,000,000, and leather to
$63,000,000. The fishermen of New England increased mightily. The gold
of California, copper of the Northwest, the salt of New York and
Michigan had reached colossal proportions. Whoever studies the
manufacturing statistics of the North for the past ten years will be at
no loss to know why the manufacturers of Great Britain are willing to
sever the Slave States from the Union, to gain a customer it was thus
supplying in 1860.

Now add to this array of agriculture, manufactures, extent of territory,
and excess of population, the superiority of the Free States in
commerce. The tonnage of the Union was twenty-six millions in 1860, the
fourth of which was the growth of the ten years previous. Out of the one
thousand and seventy-one ships built in 1860, the 'nation' of South
Carolina produced one steamer and one schooner! Contemplate the money
power of the city of New York, the vast capital invested in trade, in
banks, insurance, and the like, in the North. The slave aristocracy was
becoming imprisoned in a vast web of financial dependence--a web that
war and wholesale repudiation of debts alone could break through.

In 1860 there were in the Union 30,- 600 miles of railroad, costing
$1,134,- 452,909, four times the extent of 1850. In 1850 only one line
of railroad connected the Atlantic with the Mississippi. Now, of the
eight great railroad and canal routes connecting the sea coast with this
valley, six run through the Free States; transportation on these avenues
costs but one tenth the old methods. Governor Letcher declares the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad has 'abolitionized' Northern and Western
Virginia, and the Southern rebellion has been especially savage on
railroads. Whoever would understand one secret of the consolidation of
the people should study the railroad map of the Northern States, and
contrast it with the South. It was a fine tribute to the value of the
railroad that the first use the people made of their new political
supremacy in 1860 was to pass the bill for connecting the Atlantic and
Pacific by the iron rail and the telegraphic wire.

This vast advancement in free labor, from 1820 to 1850, was fitly closed
in 1850 by the annexation of California to the roll of the Free States,
securing to liberty the gold mines and the Pacific coast. It is
impossible to comprehend all the consequences of this step. It was the
decisive industrial triumph of the people over the slave aristocracy.
The Slave Power went mad over the defeat, _and for the last ten years
has virtually abandoned the rivalry of industries, and turned to
violence_, breaking of compromises, forcible seizure of the ballot box,
repudiation of debts, stealing of arms, and finally cruel war, as if
lying and robbing, in the long run, could upset free and honest
industry. After the loss of California and the Pacific coast, the
struggle for the Territories was but a, preliminary skirmish of the war
for the conquest and desolation of the Union. The people had _waged the
battle of liberty with the gigantic agencies of material prosperity for
forty years, and the aristocracy was completely in their power_.

For this material superiority of the free-labor States inevitably inured
to the advantage of liberty. In vain did every new Free State, year
after year, vote with the Slave Power; in vain did every great railroad
and manufacturing corporation of the North obey the political behests of
the lords of the plantations; in vain was the mercantile aristocracy of
all the great cities the fast friend of the slave aristocracy; and
vainly did almost the entire immigrant population fall politically into
its control. All this was as nothing _against the irresistible natural
tendency of free labor_. The Irishman who voted against the negro was
breaking his chain with every blow of his pick. The Wall-street banker,
the great railroad king, the cotton manufacturer, who railed against
abolitionism like mad, were condemning the slave aristocracy every day
they lived. There is a divine law by which the work of freemen shall
root out the work of slaves; and no law enacted by the will of Northern
doughfaces could repeal this statute of nature. These Northern friends
of the aristocracy supposed themselves to be helping their ambitious
allies by their political support. But the slaveholders knew how
fallacious was this aid. They saw that the North was gaining a huge
superiority to the South; that the people were slowly consolidating;
that when the free-labour interest did finally concentrate, it would
carry every Northern interest with it, and, when the pinch came, no
Northern party or statesman could or would help them do their will. They
carefully sifted all offers of aid from such quarters, and having used
every Northern interest and institution and party till it was squeezed
dry of all its black blood, they turned their backs haughtily on the
white sections of the Union, plundered friend and foe alike, and flew
into civil war, out of spite and rage at the census of 1860; in other
words, _declared war against the providence of God as manifested in the
progress of free society_. They have fought well; at first, perhaps,
better than we; but when General Lee 'flanks' the industrial decrees of
the Almighty, and Stuart 'cuts the communications' between free labor
and imperial power, they will destroy this republic--and not till then.

But was this great material gain of the people to be accompanied by a
corresponding spiritual advancement? _Was man to become the chief object
of reverence in this wonderfully expanding industrial empire?_ If not,
all this progress was deceptive, and nobody could predict how soon our
very superiority should be turned to the advantage of that aristocracy
which had perverted so many things in the republic.

It could not be denied that the Free States were making wonderful
strides, during these forty years, in mental cultivation and power. The
free industry of the North was an education to the people, and nowhere
has so much popular intelligence been carried into the business of life
as here. This period also witnessed the organization of the free school
everywhere outside of New England, its home; the daily press, the public
lecture, the creation of an American literature, all Northern; the
growth of all institutions of learning and means of intellectual and
artistic cultivation unparalleled in any other age or land. No
well-informed person could also deny the astonishing progress in
furnishing the means of religious instruction, the multiplication of
churches, great ecclesiastical organizations, and philanthropic leagues.
Notwithstanding the apparent absorption of the North in its material
prosperity, no people ever was so busy in furnishing itself with the
means of spiritual improvement; and though a population of several
millions of ignorant and superstitious foreigners was thrown in upon it
during these eventful years, it came out at the end the most intelligent
people, the best provided with the apparatus of religion, that was ever
known.

But there was one element yet wanting to assure the right usage of all
this wealth of material, intellectual, and ecclesiastical power. This
was what the slaveholding aristocracy saw at once to be the fatal omen
for their cause, and nicknamed 'Abolitionism.' _Abolitionism, as
recognized by the Slave Power, is nothing more nor less than the
religious reverence for man and his natural rights._ This moral respect
for the nature and rights of all men has always encountered the peculiar
scorn of aristocracies, and no men have been so bitterly persecuted in
history as those who represented the religious opposition to despotism.
The Hebrew aristocracy in old Palestine called this sentiment 'atheism'
in Jesus Christ, and crucified Him. The pagan aristocracy called it a
'devilish superstition' in the early Christians, and slaughtered them
like cattle. The priestly and civil absolutism of the sixteenth century
called it 'fanaticism' in the Dutch and German reformers, and fought it
eighty years with fire and rack and sword. The church and crown
nicknamed it 'Puritanism,' and persecuted it till it turned and cut off
the head of Charles the First, and secured religious liberty. The slave
aristocracy stigmatized it 'Abolitionism,' and let loose upon it every
infernal agency in its power.

One great man, yet alive, but not yet recognized as he will be, was the
representative of this religious reverence for the rights of man. Lloyd
Garrison has been, for the last twenty-five years, the best-hated man in
these Northern States, not because he failed to see just how a Union of
Free and Slave States could endure; not because of any visionary theory
of political action or the structure of society he cherished; but,
strangely enough, because _he stood-up for man and his divine right to
freedom_. This was what the aristocracy hated in him, and this is what,
with inexpressible rage, it saw gaining in the North. It truly said that
our education, our arts, our literature, our press, our churches, our
benevolent organizations, our families, all that was best in Northern
society, even our politics, were being consolidated by this
'fanaticism,' Puritanism,' 'Abolitionism'--otherwise, by _reverence for
man and his right to freedom_.

It grew, however, almost as fast as the material power of the
North--this moral conviction of the divine right of man to liberty; grew
so fast, that in 1860, South Carolina glanced over the November election
returns, saw the name of Abraham Lincoln at the head, shrieked, '_The
North is abolitionized!_' and rushed out of the Union, with ten other
Slave States at her heels, while four more were held back by the strong
arm of the national power. The North is not yet 'abolitionized,' but
every volley fired at liberty by the Slave Power these last three years,
has killed a lover of slavery, and made an Abolitionist; as the juggler
fires his pistol at your old black hat, and, when the smoke clears up, a
white dove flutters in its place. If the Slave Power shoots at us long
enough, we shall all become Abolitionists, and all learn to love our
fellow man and protect him in the enjoyment of every right given him by
God!

Thus had the Free States, the people's part of the Union, gone up
steadily to overshadowing material, intellectual, moral power. But up to
1850 this mighty growth had got no fit expression in State or national
politics. All the great parties had mildly tried to remonstrate with the
slave aristocracy, but quickly recoiled as from the mouth of a furnace.
A few attempts had been made to organize a party for freedom, but
nothing could gain foothold at Washington. A few noble men had lifted
their voices against the rampant tyranny of the slaveholders: chief
among these was John Quincy Adams, the John the Baptist crying in the
desert of American partisan politics the coming of the kingdom of
Heaven! But when the people had come up to a consciousness of their
consolidated power, and the reverence for human right was changing and
polarizing every Northern institution--in the fierce struggle that
ushered in and succeeded the admission of California, between 1848 and
1856--this Northern superiority culminated in a great political movement
against slavery. _This movement assumed a double form-positive, in the
assertion that the Slave Power should be arrested; negative, in the
assertion that the people should have their own way with it._ The
Republican party said: _The slave aristocracy shall go no farther._ The
'Popular Sovereignty' party, or Douglas Democracy, said: _The people
shall do what they choose about this matter._ Now the people were
already the superior power in the republic, and were rapidly growing to
hate the Slave Power; so the slaveholders, saw that the Northern
Democracy, with their war cry of _popular sovereignty_, might in time be
just as dangerous to them as their more open enemies. They repudiated
both forms of Northern politics, and tied the executive, under James
Buchanan, and the Supreme Court, under Judge Taney, to their dogma: _The
right of the aristocracy is supreme. Slavery, not liberty, is the law of
the republic._

The great leaders of these Northern parties were Stephen H. Douglas and
William H. Seward. Mr. Douglas was the best practical politician,
popular debater, and magnetizer of the masses, the North has yet
produced. _He was the representative of the blind power of the North_,
and stood up all his life, in his better hours, for the right of the
people to make the republic what they would. But the representative
statesman of the era is the Secretary of State. The whole career of Mr.
Seward is so interwoven with the history of the political consolidation
of the people against the Slave Power, that the two must be studied
together to be understood. Nowhere so clearly and eloquently as in the
pages of this great philosophical statesman can be read the rapid growth
of that political movement that in twelve years captured every Free
State, placed a President in the chair, and then, with a splendid
generosity, invited the whole loyal people to unite in a party of the
Union, _knowing that henceforth the Union meant the people and liberty
against the aristocracy and slavery_. And only in the light of this view
can the course of this man and his great seeming opponent, but real
associate, be fitly displayed. _Douglas had taught the people of the
North that their will should be the law of the republic. Seward had told
them that will should be in accordance with the 'higher law' of justice
and freedom._ Like men fighting in the dark, they supposed themselves
each other's enemies, while they were only commanders of the front and
rear of the army of the people. Both appeared on the national arena in
the struggle of 1850, and soon strode to the first place. The Slave
Power repudiated Seward and his 'higher law' of justice and liberty at
once. They tolerated Douglas and his 'popular sovereignty ' ten years
longer, when they found it even a more dangerous heresy, and threw him
overboard.

In the election of 1860 there were but two parties--the two wings of the
people's army, under the patriots Lincoln and Douglas; the two wings of
the slave host, under the traitors Breckinridge and Bell. Of course the
people triumphed. Had Douglas been elected instead of Lincoln, the Slave
Power would not have stayed in the Union one hour longer. _It was not
Lincoln, but the political supremacy of the people they resisted._ The
Free States had at last consolidated, never to recede, and that was
enough. Henceforth no party could live in the North that espoused the
cause of this rebel aristocracy. Whoever was Governor or President,
Democrat, Republican, Union, what not, the people's party was henceforth
supreme, and the aristocracy, with all its works of darkness, was second
best.

The political victory of 1860 was virtually complete. For the first time
in eighty years had the people concentrated against the Slave Power. The
executive was gained, placing the army, navy, appointments, and
patronage in the hands of the President, the people's representative by
birth and choice. The North had a majority of eight in the Senate and
sixty-five in the House of Representatives, insuring a control of the
foreign policy and the financial affairs of the republic; while the
Supreme Court, the last bulwark of despotism, could be reconstructed in
the interest of the Constitution. It is true the people did not
appreciate the magnitude of the victory, or realize what it implied.
They would probably have made no special use of it at once, and the
aristocracy might have outwitted them again, as they had for three
quarters of a century past. But the slaveholders knew that now was just
the time to strike. If they waited till the people understood themselves
better, and learned how to administer the Government for liberty, it
would be too late. They still had possession of the executive, with all
the departments, the Supreme Court, army, and navy, for four precious
months. This was improved in inflicting as much damage on the Government
as possible, and organizing a confederacy of revolted States. The people
did not believe they would fight, and offered them various compromises,
_everything except the thing they desired--unlimited power to control
the republic_. The aristocracy knew that no compromises would do them
good which proposed anything less than a reconstruction of the Union
which would insure their perpetual supremacy. They even doubted if this
could be effectually accomplished in a peaceful way. The people must
first be subdued by arms, their Union destroyed, and brought to the
verge of anarchy by this mighty power, backed by the whole despotism of
Europe; then might they be compelled to accept such terms as it chose to
dictate. It waited no longer than was necessary to complete its
preparations, and opened ed its guns in Charleston harbor. When the
smoke of that cannonade drifted away, the people beheld with
consternation the Slave Powers arrayed in arms, from Baltimore and St.
Louis to New Orleans and the Rio Grande, advancing to seize their
capital and overthrow the republic.

Having conquered the aristocracy by its industry, education, religion,
and politics--driven it from every position on the great field of
American society in an era of peace--the people slowly awoke to the
conviction that they must now conquer it on the field of arms. They were
slow to come to that conviction. Their ablest leaders were not
war-statesmen, and did not comprehend at once the full meaning of the
war. They called it a 'conspiracy,' a 'rebellion,' an 'insurrection,' a
'summer madness,' anything but what it was--_the American stave
aristocracy in arms to subdue the people of the United States with every
other aristocracy on earth wishing it success_. But the people did not
refuse the challenge. In April, 1861, they rushed to the capital, saved
their Government from immediate capture or dispersion, and then began to
prepare, after their way, for--they hardly knew what--to suppress a riot
or wage a civil war.

In every such conflict as this the aristocracy has a great advantage,
especially if it can choose its own time to begin the war. Never was an
oligarchy more favored in its preparations than ours. Since 1820 it had
contemplated and prepared for this very hour. It had almost unlimited
control over fifteen States of the Union. Society was constructed in all
these States on a military basis, the laboring class being held in place
by the power of the sword. An aristocracy is always preceded by military
ambition; for all subordinate orders of its people have acquired the
habit of respect for rank and implicit obedience to superiors, so
essential to success in war. When the war broke out, the Slave Power was
ready. Its arms and ammunition and forts were stolen; its military
organizations had been perfected in secret societies; its generals were
selected--its president perhaps the best general of all; its military
surveys were made, every Southern State mapped, and every strategical
point marked; its subordinate officers, in which the real efficiency of
an army consists, had been educated in military schools kept by such
teachers as Hill and Stonewall Jackson. It had a full crop of cotton as
a basis for finance. Its government was practically such a despotism as
does not exist in the world. At the sound of the first gun in
Charleston, the aristocracy sprang to arms; in a fortnight every
strategical point in fifteen States was practically in its possession,
and Washington tottered to its fall.

The people, as the people always are, were unprepared for war. Their
entire energies had been concentrated for forty years in organizing the
gigantic victory of peace which they had just achieved. When they woke
up to the idea that there was yet another battle to be fought before the
aristocracy would subside, they _began to learn the art of war_. And
never did the people begin a great war so unprepared. The people of
Europe have always had military traditions and cultivation to fall back
upon in their civil wars. The North had no military traditions later
than the Revolution, for no war since that day had really called forth
their hearty efforts. Three generations of peace had destroyed even
respect for war as an employment fit for civilized men. There were not
ten thousand trained soldiers in all the nineteen States in April, 1861.
There were not good arms to furnish fifty thousand troops in the
possession of the National or loyal State Governments. Most of the
ablest military men of the North had left the army, and were engaged in
peaceful occupations. Halleck was in the law; McClellan, Burnside,
Banks, on the railroad; Mitchel and Sigel teaching schoolboys; Hooker,
Kearny, McCall, Dix, retired gentlemen; Fremont digging gold; Rosecrans
manufacturing oil, and Grant in a tanyard; and so on to the end of the
chapter; while Scott, the patriot hero, who was but once defeated in
fifty years' service, was passing over into the helplessness of old age.
Of course such a people did not realize the value of military education,
and fell into the natural delusion that a multitude of men carrying guns
and wearing blue coats is an army; and any 'smart man' can make a
colonel in three months. There was not even a corporal in the Cabinet,
and Mr, Lincoln's military exploits were confined to one campaign, in
the war of 1812, and one challenge to fight a duel. There were not ten
Northern men in Congress who could take a company into action. In short,
we had the art of war to learn; even did not know it was necessary to
learn to fight as to do anything else; especially to fight against an
aristocracy that had been studying war for forty years.

For more than three years have the people of the United States waged
this gigantic war thus precipitated upon them by their aristocracy to
arrest the irresistible growth of modern society in the republic. Every
year has been a period of great success, though our peaceful population,
unacquainted with war, and often ignorant of the vast issues of this
conflict, have often inclined to despondency. Of course the aristocracy
fought best, at first, as every aristocracy in the world has done. With
half our number of better disciplined troops, better commanded and
man[oe]uvred, and the great advantage of interior lines, supported by
railroad communications, and possessing in Virginia, perhaps, the most
defensible region in the Union, they held our Army of the Potomac at bay
for two years; have thrice overrun Maryland and the Pennsylvania border,
and yet hold their fortified capital; while every step of our victorious
progress in the Southwest has been bitterly contested. Yet this war of
martial forces has been strangely like the long, varied war of material,
moral, and political forces of which it is the logical sequel.

The Union navy won the earliest laurels in the war. The navy has been
the right arm of the people in all ages. The Athenian navy repelled the
invasion of Greece by the Persian empire. Antony, Pompey, Caesar, the
people's leaders in Rome, built up their youthful power upon the sea.
The Dutch and English navies saved religious and civil liberty in the
sixteenth century; and all the constitutional Governments that now exist
in Europe came out of the hold of a British man-of-war. The United
States, in 1812, extemporized a navy that gained us the freedom of the
seas. And now the navy has led the way in the war for the freedom of the
continent. The aristocracy felt, intuitively, the danger of this arm of
defence, and discouraged, scattered, and almost annihilated our naval
power before they entered upon the war. When we learn that our active
navy, in April, 1861, consisted of one frigate, too large to sail over
the bar of Charleston harbor, and one two-gun supply ship; and that in
the three successive years it has shot up into a force of five hundred
vessels; that our new ironclads and guns have revolutionized the art of
naval warfare; that we have established the most effective blockade ever
known along two thousand miles of dangerous coast; have captured Port
Royal and New Orleans, aided in the opening of the Mississippi and all
its dependencies which we now patrol, penetrated to the cotton fields of
Alabama, occupied the inland waters of North Carolina and Virginia,
seized every important rebel port and navy yard save four, and destroyed
every war ship of the enemy that has ventured in range of our cannon, we
are pronouncing a eulogy of which any people may be proud. One year more
will swell this maritime power to a force amply sufficient to protect
the coast of the whole republic from all assault of traitors at home or
their friends abroad.

But the army of the Union has not been content to remain permanently
behind the navy. Even in the first year of the conflict, when it was
only a crowd of seventy-five thousand undisciplined militia, contending
against a solid body of well-disciplined and commanded forces, it
wrested two States from the foe, and baffled his intentions for the
capture of all our great border cities. But since the opening of the
campaign of 1802, the real beginning of war by the North, we have
conquered from the aristocracy and now hold fast in Slave States an
area of two hundred thousand square miles, inhabited by four millions of
people--a district larger than France. Three years ago, every Slave
State was virtually in the grasp of the rebels, and the Union was really
put upon the defensive to protect freedom in the Free States and the
national capital. Now, by a masterly series of campaigns in the West and
Southwest, ranging from the Alleghanies to the Gulf, in which we have
never lost a decisive battle, we have saved all the Territories of the
United States, cut the 'Confederacy' in two equal parts, holding the
western division at our mercy, opened the Mississippi and all its
tributaries, and crowded the rebellion into the five States nearest the
Atlantic coast. In the east we have fought a score of battles with the
most formidable army ever marshalled on this continent, composed of the
flower of the rebel soldiery led by their best generalship, and, spite
of frequent repulses, have forced it from the Potomac and below the
Rappahannock to the James, away from the smell of salt water, holding
firmly every seaport from Washington to Wilmington, North Carolina, and
a belt of land and water commanding the approach to the interior of
every Atlantic State. The military force of the rebellion is rapidly
being crowded into one army, not exceeding two hundred and fifty
thousand men, against which the mighty power of the Union can be
marshalled in overwhelming array. I know well enough that the decisive
moment will really come when we confront that desperate and veteran
host, on which the fate of aristocratic government upon this continent
depends. But we shall then have a great army of veterans, marshalled
under commanders fit to lead them in the name of liberty and the people.

It is not strange it has taken us three years to find who can fight
among us. The Germans fought fifty years against religious despotism
before they found Gustavus Adolphus to lead them to victory. The English
fought ten years before Cromwell took command of his Ironsides. The
French blundered ten years before the 'little corporal' led the army of
the republic over the Alps to dethrone half the monarchs of Europe. The
people had but one great general in the Revolutionary War. Until 1860
the aristocracy had furnished the only great American commander. But
great generals have now appeared among the people; and if we fight
stoutly and treat men fairly, our commander will appear when his army of
veterans is ready.

The aristocracy at first moved armies faster than the people, for the
same reason that the Tartars, the Cossacks, the Arabs, the Indians, and
all semi-barbarians move more rapidly in war than a civilized people. A
semi-barbarous oligarchy fights because it loves war; a civilized people
fights to _establish civilization and peace_. The Southern army carries
little along, lives on the food and wears the dress of the semi-savage,
and overruns vast spaces, leaving a smoking desolation and a ruined
society. The Northern army moves slowly, because it carries American
civilization in its knapsack and baggage wagons, organizes republican
society as it goes, and prepares to hold for liberty all it has gained.
The people's army has paved the way for liberty and a democratic order
of society over two hundred thousand square miles, among four millions
of people, in three years. New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis, Beaufort,
Alexandria, every slave city in our possession, is being made over into
a free city.

The army goes slow because it is only the people's pioneer to level the
mountains and fill up the valleys, and construct the highway of liberty
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The Secretary of State has well
said: '_The war means the dissolution of slave society._' It was entered
into with the distinct understanding that it was the last expedient to
save the negro oligarchy from ruin, and every day it goes on its
thundering course it more emphatically pronounces its doom. The war for
the Union is the people's final contest for liberty, a contest in which
they will be victorious, as in the strife of industry, morals, and
politics. The people, like John Brown's soul, are 'marching on' to
dissolve the slave oligarchy and establish democracy. The people now
possess three fourths the territory, population, and wealth of the
republic. There are yet some six million black and white people in the
South to rescue from their masters, who now use them against us. They
are being prepared for Union with us by this war. The poor white man
will be made better, more intelligent, more ambitious even, by service
in the rebel army, and on the return of peace will become the small
farmer of a free soil. The black men will be raised, in due time made
freemen, and start as a free peasantry on a new career. A hundred
thousand slaveholders, with their families, not more than one million of
people in all, will hate the Union permanently. They will be defeated,
we hope and believe, and disorganized as a social and political power,
and the people rule in every State they have cursed by their ambition
for the last fifty years.

We do not prophesy just when or how the people will triumph. The
victory, we believe, will come; but whether all at once, or through
temporary revulsions of purpose and alternate truce and war, whether
finished by arms or yet cast again into the arena of polities, whether
by occupying all this three millions of square miles of territory or
gaining on despotism year by year, nobody knows. The Slave Power has not
yet played its trump card. It has a hundred devilish resources yet to
foil us. It may yet try to use the negroes it still holds against us by
emancipation. It may yet drag us into a war with Europe, and Saratoga
and Lake Erie and Plattsburg, and Long Island and Trenton and Bunker
Hill, and Detroit and New Orleans may yet be fought over again. But we
have seen how, for the last forty years, the people of the United States
have strode on toward supremacy, led by a Power they did not always
recognize, and sometimes scorned, but led to victory spite of
themselves.

There has indeed been a Divine Intelligence guiding the destiny of our
republic by the 'higher law' of the progress of free society toward a
Christian democracy. We do not think the Peace Party will be able to
abolish that 'higher law,' as certain of our politicians expect. We
believe God Almighty is shaping a free and exalted civilized nation out
of this republic, by a law of progress which we did not make and cannot
repeal. We may postpone that nation by our folly and sins, but it must
be made. Through labor and education, and religion and arts, and
politics and war, 'it marches' on to supremacy--_the people's nation_.
And when it is established it will be the controlling nation of this
continent, one of the firmest powers on the earth, the terror of every
aristocracy, and the joy and hope of every people on the round globe.




THE UNDIVINE COMEDY-A POLISH DRAMA.

Dedicated to Mary


PART III.

     'Il fut administe, parceque le niais demandait un pretre, puis
     pende a la satisfaction generale,' etc, etc.--_Rapport du citoyen
     Gaillot, commissaire de la sixieme chambre, an III., 5 prairial._

     'The sacraments were administered to him, because the fool demanded
     a priest; he was hung to the general satisfaction.'--_Report of
     citizen Gaillot, commissary of the sixth session, 3d year, 5th
     prairial._


A song! a new song!

Who will begin it? Who will end it?

Give me the Past, clad in steel, barbed with iron, floating in knightly
plumes! With magic power I would invoke before you gothic towers and
castellated turrets, bristling barbacans and mighty arches, baronial
halls and clustered shafts; I would throw around you the giant shadows
of vaulted domes and of revered cathedrals: but it may not be; all that
is with the Past: the Past is never to return!

       *       *       *       *       *

Speak, whosoever thou mayst be, and tell me in what thou believest! It
is easier to lose thy life than to invent a faith; to awaken any belief
in it!

Shame upon you all, great and small, for all things pursue their own
course in defiance of your schemes! You may be mean and wretched,
without hearts and without brains, yet the world hastens to its allotted
destiny; it hurries you on whether you will or no, throws you in the
dust, tosses you into wild confusion, or whirls you in resistless
circles, which cease not until they grow into dances of Death! But the
world rolls on--on; clouds and storms arise and vanish; then it grows
slippery--new couples join the dance of Death--they totter--fall--lost
in an abyss of blood--for it is slippery-blood-human blood is gushing
everywhere, as if the path to peace led through a charnel house!

       *       *       *       *       *

Behold the crowds of people thronging the gates of the cities, the
hills, the valleys, and resting beneath the shadows of the trees! Tents
are spread about, long boards are placed on the trunks of fallen trees
or on pikes and sticks to serve as tables; they are covered with meat
and drink, the full cups pass from hand to hand, and, as they touch the
eager mouth, threats, oaths, and curses press forth from the hot lips.
Faster and faster fly the cups from hand to hand, beaded, bubbling,
glittering, always filling, striking, tinkling, ringing, as they circle
among the millions: Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the cup of drunkenness and
joy!

       *       *       *       *       *

How fiercely they are agitated; how impatiently they wait! They murmur,
they break into riotous noise!

Poor wretches! scarcely covered with their miserable rags, the seal of
weary labors deeply stamped upon their sunburnt faces set with uncombed,
bristling hair, the sweat starting from their rugged brows, their strong
and horny hands armed with scythes, axes, hammers, hatchets, spades!

Look at that broad youth with the pickaxe; at the slight one with the
sword. Here is one who holds aloft a glittering pike; another who
brandishes a massive club with his brawny arm! There under the willows a
boy crams cherries into his mouth with the one hand, and with the other
punches the tree with a long, sharp awl. Women are also there, wives,
mothers, daughters, poor and hungry as the men, Not a single trace of
womanly beauty, of healthful freshness upon them; their hair is
disordered and sprinkled with the dust of the highways, their tawny
bodies scarcely covered with unsightly rags, their gloomy eyes seem
fading into their sockets, only half open as if gluing together in very
weariness: but they will soon be quickened, for the full cup flies from
lip to lip, they quaff long draughts: Hurrah! hurrah! Long live the cup
of drunkenness and joy!

       *       *       *       *       *

Hark! a noise and rustling among the masses! Is it joy, or is it grief?
Who can read the meaning of a thing so monstrously multiform!

A man arrives, mounts a table, harangues and sways the multitude. His
voice drags and grates upon the ear, but hacks itself into sharp, strong
words, clearly heard and easily understood; his gestures are slow and
light, accompanying his words as music, song. His brow is high and
strong, his head is entirely bald; thought has uprooted its last hair.
His skin is dull and tawny, the blood never tinges its dingy pallor, no
emotion ever paints its secrets there, yellow wrinkles form and cross
between the bones and muscles of his face, and a dark beard, like a
black wreath, encircles it from temple to temple. He fastens a steady
gaze upon his hearers, no doubt or hesitation ever clouds his clear,
cold eye. When he raises his arm and stretches it out toward the people,
they bow before him, as if to receive, prostrate, the blessing of a
_great intellect_, not that of a _great heart_! Down, down with the
great hearts! Away, away with old prejudices! Hurrah! hurrah! for the
words of consolation! Hurrah for the license to murder!

       *       *       *       *       *

This man is the idol of the people, their passion, the ruler of their
souls, the stimulator of their enthusiasm. He promises them bread and
money, and their cries rise like the rushing of a storm, widening and
deepening in every direction: 'Long live Pancratius! Hurrah! Bread and
money! Bread for us, our wives, our children! Hurrah! hurrah!'

       *       *       *       *       *

At the feet of the speaker, leaning against the table on which he
stands, rests his friend, companion, and disciple. His eye is dark and
oriental, shadowed by long and gloomy lashes, his arms hang down, his
limbs bend under him, his body is badly formed and distorted, his mouth
is sensual and voluptuous, his expression is sharp and malicious, his
fingers are laden with rings of gold--he joins the tumult, crying with a
rough, hoarse voice: 'Long live Pancratius!' The speaker looks at him
carelessly for a moment, and says: 'Citizen, Baptized, hand me a
handkerchief!'

       *       *       *       *       *

Meantime the uproar continues; the cries become more and more
tumultuous: 'Bread for us! Bread! bread! Long live Pancratius! Death to
the nobles! to the merchants! to the rich! Bread! bread! Bread and
blood! Hurrah! hurrah!'

       *       *       *       *       *

     A tabernacle. Lamps. An open book lies on a table. Baptized Jews.

THE BAPTIZED. My wretched brethren; my revenge-seeking, beloved
brethren! let us suck nourishment from the pages of the Talmud, as from
the breast of our mother; it is the breast of life from which strength
and honey flow for us, bitterness and poison for our enemies.

CHORUS OF BAPTIZED JEWS. Jehovah is our God, and ours alone; therefore
has He scattered us in every land!

Like the coiled folds of an enormous serpent, He has wreathed us
everywhere round and through the adorers of the cross; our lithe and
subtile rings pass round and through our foolish, proud, unclean
rulers.

Let us thrice spew them forth to destruction! Threefold curses light
upon them!

THE BAPTIZED. Rejoice, my brethren! the Cross of our Great Enemy is
already more than half hewn down; it is rotting to its fall; it is only
standing on a root of blood: if it once plunge into the abyss it will
never rise again. Hitherto the nobles have been its sole defence, but
they are ours! ours!

CHORUS OF BAPTIZED JEWS. Our work, our long, long work of centuries, our
sad, ardent, painful work is almost done!

Death to the nobles--let us thrice spew them forth to destruction!
Threefold curses light upon them!

THE BAPTIZED. The might of Israel shall be built upon a liberty without
law or order, upon a slaughter without end, upon the _pride_ of the
nobility, the _folly_ of the masses. The nobles are almost destroyed; we
must drive the few still left into the abyss of death, and scatter over
their livid corpses the ruins of the shattered cross in which they
trusted!

CHORUS OF BAPTIZED JEWS. The cross is now our holy symbol; the water of
baptism has reunited us with men; the scorning repose upon the love of
the scorned!

The freedom of men is our cry; the welfare of the people our aim; ha!
ha! the eons of Christ trust the sons of Caiaphas!

Centuries ago our fathers tortured our Great Enemy to death; we will
again torture him to death this very day--but He will never rise more
from the grave which we prepare for Him!

THE BAPTIZED. Yet a little space, a little time, a few drops of poison,
and the whole world will be our own, my brethren!

CHORUS OF BAPTIZED JEWS. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and of it alone.

Let us thrice spew forth the nations to destruction! Threefold curses
light upon them!

  Knocking is heard at the door.

THE BAPTIZED. Take up your work, brethren! And thou, Holy Book, away
from sight--no unclean look shall soil thy spotless leaves! Who is
there?

  Hides the Talmud.

VOICE (_without_). A friend. Open in the name of freedom.

THE BAPTIZED. Quick to your hammers and looms, my brethren!

  He opens the door.

  Enter Leonard.

LEONARD. Well done, citizens. You watch, I see, and whet your swords for
to-morrow.--(_Approaching one of the men:_) What are you making here in
this corner?

ONE OF THE BAPTIZED. Ropes.

LEONARD. You are right, citizen, for he who falls not by iron must hang!

THE BAPTIZED. Citizen Leonard, is the thing really to come off
to-morrow?

LEONARD. He who thinks, feels, and acts with the most force among us,
has sent me to you to appoint an interview. He will himself answer your
question.

THE BAPTIZED. I go to meet him. Brethren, remain at work. Look well to
them, citizen Yankel.

  Exit with Leonard.

CHORUS OF BAPTIZED JEWS. Ye ropes and daggers, ye clubs and bills, the
works of our hands, ye wilt go forth to destroy them!

The people will kill the nobles upon the plains, will hang them in the
forests, and then, having none to defend them, we will kill and hang the
people! The Despised will arise in their anger, will array themselves in
the might of Jehovah: His Word is Redemption and Love for His people
Israel, but scorn and fury for their enemies!

Let us thrice spew them forth to destruction: threefold curses fall upon
them!

       *       *       *       *       *

  A tent. A profusion of flasks, cups, and
  flagons. Pancratius alone.

PANCRATIUS. The mob howled in applause but a moment ago, shouted in loud
hurrahs at every word I uttered. But is there a single man among them
all who really understands my ideas, or who comprehends the end and aim
of that path upon which we have entered, or where the reforms will
terminate which have been so loudly inaugurated within the last hour?
'Ah! fervidum imitatorum pecus!'

  Enter Leonard and the Baptized Jew.

Do you know Count Henry?

THE BAPTIZED. I know him well by sight, great citizen, but I am not
personally acquainted with him. I remember once when I was approaching
the Lord's Supper, he cried to me, '_Out of the way!_' and looked down
upon me with the arrogant look peculiar to the nobles--for which I vowed
him a rope in my soul.

PANCRATIUS. Prepare to visit him early to-morrow morning, and announce
to him that it is my wish to confer with him alone.

THE BAPTIZED. How many men will you send with me on this embassy? I do
not think it would be safe to undertake it without a guard.

PANCRATIUS. You must go alone, my name will be sufficient guard, and the
gallows on which you hung the baron yesterday, your shield.

THE BAPTIZED. Woe is me!

PANCRATIUS. Tell him I will visit him to-morrow night.

THE BAPTIZED. And if he should put me in chains or order me to be hung?

PANCRATIUS. You would die a martyr for the freedom of the people!

THE BAPTIZED. I will sacrifice all for the freedom of the
people.--(_Aside_.) Woe is me!--(_Aloud._) Good night, citizen.

  Exit the Baptized.

LEONARD. Pancratius, why this delay, these half measures, these
contracts, this strange interview? When I swore to honor and obey you,
it was because I believed you to be a hero of extremes, an eagle flying
even in the face of the sun directly to its aim; a brave man ready to
venture all upon the cast of a die.

PANCRATIUS. Silence, child!

LEONARD. Everything is ready; the baptized Jews have forged arms and
woven ropes; the masses clamor for immediate orders. Speak but the word
now, and the electric sparks will fly, the millions flash into forked
lightnings, kindle into flame, and consume our enemies!

PANCRATIUS. You are young, and the blood mounts rapidly into your brain;
but will the hour of combat find you more resolute than myself?

LEONARD. Think well what you are doing. The nobles, weak and exhausted,
have fled for refuge to the famous fortress of the Holy Trinity,[1] and
await our arrival, as men wait the knife of the guillotine.

[Footnote 1: A renowned fort in Polish history. It stood on the old
battlefield between Turkey and Poland, between Europe and Asia.]

Forward, citizen, attack them without delay, and it is over with them
forever!

PANCRATIUS. It can make no difference; they have lost the old energy of
their caste in luxury and idleness. To-morrow or the next day they must
fall, what matter which?

LEONARD. What and whom do you fear, and why do you delay?

PANCRATIUS. I fear nothing. I act but in accordance with my own will.

LEONARD. And am I to trust it blindly?

PANCRATIUS. Yes. Blindly.

LEONARD. You may betray us, citizen!

PANCRATIUS. Betrayal rings forever from your lips like the refrain of an
old song.

But hush! not so loud--if any one should hear us ...

LEONARD. There are no spies here; and what if some one should hear us?

PANCRATIUS. Nothing; only five balls in your heart for having ventured
to raise your voice a tone too high in my presence. (_Approaching close
to him_.) Leonard, trust me, and be tranquil!

LEONARD. I confess I have been too hasty, but I fear no punishment. If
my death could help the cause of the down-trodden masses, I would
cheerfully die.

PANCRATIUS. You are full of life, hope, faith. Happiest of men, I will
not rob you of the bliss of existence.

LEONARD. What do you say, citizen?

PANCRATIUS. Think more; speak less; the time will come when you will
fully understand me!

Have you collected the provisions for the carousal of the millions?

LEONARD. They have all been sent to the arsenal under guard.

PANCRATIUS. Has the contribution from the shoemakers been received?

LEONARD. It has. Every one gave with the greatest eagerness; it amounts
to a hundred thousand.

PANCRATIUS. They must all be invited to a general festival to-morrow.

Have you heard nothing of Count Henry?

LEONARD. I despise the nobles too deeply to credit what I hear of him.
The dying race have no energy left; it is impossible they should dare or
venture aught.

PANCRATIUS. And yet it is true that he is collecting and training his
serfs and peasants, and, confiding in their devotion and attachment to
himself, intends leading them to the relief of the fortress of the Holy
Trinity.

LEONARD. Who can oppose us? _The ideas of our century stand incorporated
in us!_

PANCRATIUS. I am determined to see Count Henry, to gaze into his eyes,
to read the very depths of his brave spirit, to win him over to the
glorious cause of the people.

LEONARD. An aristocrat, body and soul!

PANCRATIUS. True: but also a Poet!

Good night, Leonard, I would be alone.

LEONARD. Have you forgiven me, citizen?

PANCRATIUS. Sleep in peace: if I had not forgiven you, you would ere
this have slept the eternal sleep.

LEONARD. And will nothing take place to-morrow?

PANCRATIUS. Good night, and pleasant dreams!

  Leonard is retiring.

Ho, Leonard!

LEONARD. Citizen general?


PANCRATIUS. You will accompany me day after morrow on my visit to Count
Henry.

LEONARD. I will obey.

  Exit Leonard.

PANCRATIUS. How is it that this man, Count Henry, still dares to resist
and defy _me_, the ruler of millions? His forces will bear no comparison
with mine; indeed he stands almost alone, although it is true that some
hundred or two of peasants, confiding blindly in his word and clinging
to him as the dog clings to his master, still cluster round him--but
that is all folly, and can amount to nothing. Why, then, do I long to
see him, long to win him to our side? Has my spirit for the first time
encountered its equal? Can it progress no farther in the path in which
he stands to oppose me? His resistance is the last obstacle to be
overcome--he must be overthrown--and then? ... and then! ...

O my cunning intellect! Canst thou not deceive _thyself_ as thou hast
deceived others?...

Shame! thou shouldst know thine own might! Thou art _thought_, the
intelligence and reason of the people--the ruler of the masses--thou
controllest the millions, so that their will and giant force is _one_
with _thine_--all authority and government are incarnated and
concentrated in thee alone--all that would be crime in others is in thee
fame and glory--thou hast given name and place to unknown and obscure
men--thou hast given faith and eloquence to beings who had been almost
robbed of moral sentiment--thou hast created a new world in thine own
image, and _art thyself its god_! and yet ... and yet ... thou art
wandering in unknown wastes, and fearest to be lost thyself--to go
astray!

Thou knowest not thyself, nor of what thou art capable; thou rulest
others, yet doubt'st thyself--thou knowest not what thou art--whither
thou goest--nor whence thou earnest! No ... no.... Thou art sublime!

  Sinks upon a chair in silent thought.

       *       *       *       *       *

     A forest, with a cleared hill in its midst, upon which stands a
     gallows; huts, tents, watchfires, barrels, tables, and crowds of
     men. The Man disguised in a dark cloak and red liberty cap, and
     holding the Baptized Jew by the hand.

THE MAN. Remember!

THE BAPTIZED (_in a whisper_). Upon my honor, I will lead your
excellency aright, I will not betray you.

THE MAN. Give but one suspicious wink, raise but a finger, and my bullet
finds its way to your heart! You may readily imagine that I attach no
great value to your life when I thus lightly risk my own.

THE BAPTIZED. Oh woe! You press my hand like a vice of steel. What is it
you wish me to do?

THE MAN. Appear to the crowd as if I were an acquaintance--treat me as a
newly arrived friend.

What kind of a dance is that?

THE BAPTIZED. The dance of a free people.

     Men and woman dance, leap, and sing round the gallows.

THEIR CHORUS. Bread! meat! work! wood in winter, rest in summer! Hurrah!
hurrah!

God had no compassion upon us: Hurrah! hurrah!

Kings had no compassion upon us: Hurrah! hurrah!

The nobles had no compassion upon us: Hurrah! hurrah!

We renounce God, kings, and nobles: Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

THE MAN (_to a maiden_). I am glad to see you look so gay, so blooming.

THE MAIDEN. I am sure we have waited quite long enough for such a day as
this! I have washed dishes and cleaned knives and forks all my life,
without ever having heard a kind word spoken to me: it is high time I
too should begin to eat, to dance, to make merry. Hurrah! hurrah!

THE MAN. Dance, citizeness!

THE BAPTIZED. For God's sake, be cautious, count! You may be recognized;
let us go!

THE MAN. If any one should recognize me, you are lost. We will mingle
with the throng.

THE BAPTIZED. A crowd of servants are sitting under the shade of this
oak.

THE MAN. Let us approach them.

FIRST SERVANT. I have just killed my first master.

SECOND SERVANT. And I am on the search for my baron. Your health,
citizens!

VALET DE CHAMBRE. In the sweat of our brows, in the depths of
humiliation, licking the dust from the boots of our masters, and
prostrate before them, we have yet always felt our rights as men: let us
drink the health of our present society!

CHORUS OF SERVANTS. Here's to the health of our citizen President! one
of ourselves, he will lead us to glory!

VALET DE CHAMBRE. Thanks, citizens, thanks!

CHORUS OF SERVANTS. Out of dark kitchens, dressing rooms, and
antechambers, our prisons of old, we rush together into freedom: Hurrah!

We know the ridiculous follies, peevishness, and perversity of our
masters; we have been behind the shows and shams of glittering halls:
Hurrah!

THE MAN. Whose voices are those I hear so harsh and wild from that
little mound on our left?

THE BAPTIZED. The butchers are singing a chorus.

CHORUS OF THE BUTCHERS. The cleaver and axe are our weapons; our life is
in the slaughter house; we know the hue of blood, and care not if we
kill _cattle_ or _nobles_!

Children of blood and strength, we look with indifference upon the pale
and weak; he who needs us, has us; we slaughter beeves for the nobles;
the nobles for the people!

The cleaver and axe are our arms; our life is in the slaughter house:
Hurrah for the slaughter house! the slaughter house! the slaughter
house! the slaughter house!

THE MAN. Come! I like the next group better; honor and philosophy are at
least named in it. Good evening, madame!

THE BAPTIZED. It would be better if your excellency should say,
'citizeness,' or 'woman of freedom.'

WOMAN. What do you mean by the title, 'madame?' From whence did it come?
Fie! fie! you smell of mould!

THE MAN. Pardon my mistake!

WOMAN. I am as free as you, I am a free woman; I give my love freely to
the community, because they have acknowledged my right to lavish it
where I will!

THE MAN. And have the community given you for it these jewelled rings,
these chains of violet amethysts?... O thrice beneficent community!

THE WOMAN. No, the community did not give them to me; but at my
emancipation I took these things secretly from the casket of my husband,
for he was my enemy, the enemy of freedom, and had long held me
enslaved!

THE MAN. Citizeness, I wish you a most agreeable promenade!

     They pass on.

Who is this marvellous-looking warrior leaning upon a two-edged sword,
with a death's head upon his cap, another upon his badge, and a third
upon his breast? Is he not the famous Bianchetti, a condottiere employed
by the people, as the condottieri once were by the kings and nobles?

THE BAPTIZED. Yes, it is Bianchetti; he has been with us for the last
eight or ten days.

THE MAN (_to Bianchetti_). What is General Bianchetti considering with
so much attention?

BIANCHETTI. Look through this opening in the woods, citizen, and you
will see a castle upon a hill: with my glass I can see the walls,
ramparts, bastions, etc.

THE MAN. It will be hard to take, will it not?

BIANCHETTI. Kings and devils! it can be surrounded by subterranean
passages, undermined, and....

THE BAPTIZED (_winking at Bianchetti_). Citizen general....

THE MAN (_in a whisper to the Baptized_). Look under my cloak how the
cock of my pistol is raised!

THE BAPTIZED (_aside_). Oh woe!--(_Aloud._) How do you mean to conduct
the siege, citizen general?

BIANCHETTI. Although you are my brother in freedom, you are not my
confidant in strategy. After the capitulation of the castle, my plans
will be made public.

THE MAN (_to the Baptized_). Take my advice, Jew, and strike him dead,
for such is the beginning of all aristocracies.

A WEAVER. Curses! curses! curses!

THE MAN. Poor fellow! what are you doing under this tree, and why do you
look so pale and wild?

THE WEAVER. Curses upon the merchants and manufacturers! All the best
years of my life, years in which other men love maidens, meet in wide
plains, or sail upon vast seas, with free air and open space around
them, I have spent in a narrow, dark, gloomy room, chained like a galley
slave to a silk loom!

THE MAN. Take some food! Empty the full cup which you hold in your hand!

WEAVER. I have not strength enough left to carry it to my lips! I am so
tired; I could scarcely crawl up here--it is the day of freedom! but a
day of freedom is not for me--it comes too late, too late!--(_He falls,
and gasps out_:) Curses upon the manufacturers who make silks! upon the
merchants, who buy them! upon the nobles, who wear them! Curses! curses!
curses!

     He writhes on the ground and dies.

THE BAPTIZED. What a ghastly corpse!

THE MAN. Baptized Jew, citizen, poltroon of freedom, look upon this
lifeless head, shining in the blood-red rays of the setting sun! Where
are now your words and promises; the equality, perfectibility, and
universal happiness of the human race?

THE BAPTIZED (_aside_). May you soon fall into a like ruin, and the dogs
tear the flesh from your rotting corpse!--(_Aloud._) I beg that your
excellency will now permit me to return, that I may give an account of
my embassy!

THE MAN. You may say that, believing you to be a spy, I forcibly
detained you.--(_Looking around him._) The tumult and noise of the
carousal is dying away behind us; before us there is nothing to be seen
but fir and pine trees bathed in the crimson rays of sunset.

THE BAPTIZED. Clouds are gathering thick and fast over the tops of the
trees: had you not better return to your people, Count Henry, who have
been waiting so long for you in the vault of St. Ignatius?

THE MAN. Thank you for your exceeding care of me, Sir Jew! But back! I
will return and take another look at the festival of the citizens.

VOICES (_under the trees_). The children of Ham bid good night to thee,
old Sun!

VOICE (_on the right_). Here's to thy health, old enemy! Thou hast long
driven us on to unpaid work, and awaked us early to unheeded pain! Ha!
ha! When thou risest upon us to-morrow, thou wilt find us with fish and
flesh: now off to the devil, empty glass!

THE BAPTIZED. The bands of peasants are coming this way.

THE MAN. You shall not leave me. Place yourself behind this tree trunk,
and be silent!

CHORUS OF PEASANTS. Forward, forward, under the white tents to meet our
brethren! Forward, forward, under the green shade of the beeches, to
rest, to sleep, to pleasant sunset greetings!

Our maidens there await us; there await us our slaughtered oxen, the
old teams of our ploughs!

A VOICE. I am pulling and dragging him on with all my strength--now he
turns and defends himself--down! down among the dead!

VOICE OF THE DYING NOBLE. My children, pity! pity!

SECOND VOICE. Chain me to your land and make me work without pay
again--will you!

THIRD VOICE. My only son fell under the blows of your lash, old lord;
either wake him from the dead, or die to join him!

FOURTH VOICE. The children of Ham drink thy health, old lord! they beg
thee for forgiveness, lord!

CHORUS OF PEASANTS (_passing on out of sight_). A vampire sucked our
blood, and lived upon our strength:

We have caught the vampire, he shall escape no more!

By Satan, thou shalt hang as high as a great lord should!

By Satan, thou shalt die high, high above us all!

Death to the nobles; tyrants were they all!

Drink, food, and rest for us; poor, weary, hungry, thirsty, naked!

Your bodies shall lie like sheaves upon our fields; the ruins of your
castles fly like chaff beneath the flail of the thresher!

VOICE. The children of Ham will dance merrily round their bonfires!

THE MAN. I cannot see the face of the murdered noble, they throng so
thickly round him.

THE BAPTIZED. It is in all probability a friend or relation of your
excellency!

THE MAN. I despise him, and hate you!

Poetry will sweeten all this horror hereafter. Forward, Jew, forward!

     They disappear among the trees.

       *       *       *       *       *

     Another part of the forest. A mound upon which watchfires are
     burning. A procession of people bearing torches.

THE MAN (_appearing among them with the Baptized_). These drooping
branches have torn my liberty cap into tatters.

Ha! what hell of flame is this throwing its crimson light into the
gloom, and leaping through these heavily fringed walls of the forest?

THE BAPTIZED. We have wandered from our way while seeking the pass of
St. Ignatius. We must retrace our steps immediately, for this is the
spot in which Leonard celebrates the solemnities of the New Faith!

THE MAN. Forward, in the name of God! I must see these solemnities. Fear
nothing, Jew, no one will recognize us.

THE BAPTIZED. Be prudent; our lives hang on a breath!

THE MAN. What enormous ruins are these scattered around us! This
ponderous pile must have lasted centuries before it fell!

Pillars, pedestals, capitals, fallen arches--ha! I am treading upon the
broken remnants of an escutcheon. Bas-reliefs of exquisite sculpture are
scattered about upon the earth! Heavens! that is the sweet face of the
Virgin Mother shining through the heart of the darkness! The light
flickers, I can see it no more. Here are the slight-fluted shafts of a
shrine, panes of colored glass with cherub heads, a carved railing of
bronze, and now, in the light of yonder torch, I see the half of a
monumental figure of a reclining knight in armor thrown upon the burnt
and withered grass: Where am I, Jew?

THE BAPTIZED. You are passing through the graveyard of the last church
of the Old Faith; our people labored forty days and forty nights without
intermission to destroy it; it seemed built for eternal ages.

THE MAN. Your songs and hymns, ye new men, grate harshly on my ears!

Dark forms are moving forward in every direction, from before us, behind
us, and from either side; lights and shadows, driven to and fro by the
wind, float like living spirits through the throng.

A PASSER-BY. I greet you, citizens, in the name of freedom!

SECOND PASSER-BY. I greet you in the name of the slaughter of the
nobles!

THIRD PASSER-BY. The priests chant the praise of freedom; why do you not
hasten forward?

THE BAPTIZED. We cannot resist the pressure of the throng; they drive us
on from every side.

THE MAN. Who is this young man standing in front of us, mounted upon the
ruins of the shrine? Three flames burn beneath him, his face shines from
the midst of fire and smoke, his voice rings like the shriek of a
maniac; and his gestures are rapid and eager?

THE BAPTIZED. That is Leonard, the inspired and enthusiastic prophet of
freedom. Our priests, our philosophers, our poets, our artists, with
their daughters and loved ones, are standing round him.

THE MAN. Ha, I understand; your aristocracy! Point out to me the man who
sent you to seek an interview with me.

THE BAPTIZED. He is not here.

LEONARD. Fly to my arms; cling to my lips; come to me, my beautiful
bride! Independent, free, stripped of the veils of hypocrisy, full of
love, untrammelled from the chilling fetters of prejudice, come to me,
thou chosen one of the lovely daughters of freedom!

VOICE OF A MAIDEN. I fly to thee, beloved one!

SECOND MAIDEN. Look upon me! I stretch forth my arms to thee, but have
sunk fainting among the ruins; I cannot rise, and have only strength
left to turn to thee, beloved!

THIRD MAIDEN. I have outstripped them all; through cinders and ashes,
flame and smoke, I fly to thee, beloved!

THE MAN. With long, dishevelled hair far floating on the wind, with
snowy bosom panting with wild excitement, she clambers up the smoking
ruins to his arms!

THE BAPTIZED. Thus is it every night.

LEONARD. To me! to me! my bliss, my rapture! Lovely daughter of freedom,
thou tremblest with delicious, god-like madness!

Inspiration, flood my soul! Listen to me, all ye people, for now will I
prophesy unto you!

THE MAN. Her head sinks on his bosom; she faints in his arms.

LEONARD. Look upon us, ye people! we offer you an image of the human
race, freed from trammels, and risen into new life from the death of
forms. We stand upon the ruins of old dogmas, of old gods; yea, glory
unto us, for we have torn the old gods limb from limb!

They have rotted into dust; our spirits have conquered theirs; their
very souls have fallen into the abyss of nothingness!

CHORUS OF WOMEN. Happy among women is the bride of the prophet: we stand
below and envy her glory!

LEONARD. I announce to you a new world; to a new god I have given the
heavens; to the god of freedom and of bliss, the god of the people;
every offering of their vengeance, the piled corpses of their
oppressors, be his fitting altar! The old tears and agonies of humanity
will be forever swept away in an ocean of blood!

We now inaugurate the perpetual happiness of men; freedom and equality
belong of right to all!

Damnation and the gallows to him who would reorganize the Past; to him
who would conspire against the common fraternity!

CHORUS OF MEN. The towers of superstition, of tyranny, of pride, have
fallen, have fallen! To him who would save one stone from the old
buildings--damnation and death!

THE BAPTIZED (_aside_). Ye blasphemers of Jehovah, I thrice spew you
forth to destruction!

THE MAN. Keep but thy promise, Eagle, and I will build on this very spot
and upon their bowed necks a new temple to the Son of God, the Merciful!

A CONFUSED CRY FROM MINGLING VOICES. Freedom! Equality! Bliss! Hurrah!
hurrah!

CHORUS OF THE NEW PRIESTS. Where are the lords, where are the kings, who
lately walked the earth with crown and sceptre, ruled with pride and
scorn?

FIRST MURDERER. I killed King Alexander.

SECOND MURDERER. I stabbed King Henry.

THIRD MURDERER. I murdered King Immanuel!

LEONARD. Go on without fear; murder without a sting of conscience!

Remember that you are the Elect of the Elect; the Holy among the Holy;
the brave heroes and blessed martyrs of equality and freedom!

CHORUS OF MURDERERS. We go in the darkness of night; we move in the
gloom of the shadow! With the dagger firmly clutched in our unsparing
hands, we go, we go!

LEONARD (_to the Maiden_). Arouse thee, my beautiful and free!

     A loud clap of thunder is heard.

Reply to the living god of thunder: raise high the hymn of strength!
Follow me all, all! Let us once more trample under our feet the ruined
temple of the dead God!

THE MAIDEN. I glow with love to thee and to thy god! I will share my
love with the whole world: I glow! I glow!

THE MAN. Some one blocks the way; he falls upon his knees, raises his
joined hands, struggles, sighs, sobs....

THE BAPTIZED. He is the son of a famous philosopher.

LEONARD. What do you demand, Herman?

HERMAN. High priest, give me the Sacrament of Murder!

LEONARD (_to the Priests_). Give me the oil, the dagger, and the
poison!--(To Herman.) With the sacred oil once used to anoint kings, I
now anoint thee to their destruction!

The arm once used by knights and nobles, I give thee now for their
destruction!

I hang upon thy breast this flask of poison, that where the sword cannot
reach, it may gnaw, corrode, and burn the bowels of the tyrants!

Go, and destroy the old race in all parts of the world!

THE MAN. He is gone! I see him, at the head of a band of assassins,
crossing the crest of the nearest hill.

THE BAPTIZED. They turn, they approach us, we must move out of their
way!

THE MAN. No. I will dream this dream to its end!

THE BAPTIZED (_aside_). I thrice spew thee forth to destruction!--(_To
the Man_). Leonard might recognize me, your excellency. Do you not see
the knife glittering upon his breast?

THE MAN. Wrap yourself up in my cloak. What ladies are those dancing
before him you call Leonard?

THE BAPTIZED. Princesses and countesses who have forsaken their
husbands.

THE MAN. Once my angels!!

The people now surround him on every side, I can see him no longer, I
only know by the retreating music that he is going farther from us.
Follow me, Jew, we can see him better up here!

     He clambers up the parapet of a wall.

THE BAPTIZED. Woe! woe! We will certainly be discovered.

THE MAN. There, now I can see him again! Ha! other women are with him
now, pale, confused, trembling, following him convulsively; the son of
the philosopher foams and brandishes his dagger; they are stopping by
the ruins of the North Tower.

They remain standing for a moment, they climb upon the ruins, they tear
them down, they pull the shrine apart, they throw coals upon the
prostrate altars, the votive wreaths, the holy pictures; the fire
kindles, columns of smoke darken all before me: Woe to the destroyers!
Woe!

LEONARD. Woe to the men who still bow down before the dead God!

THE MAN. Dark masses of the people turn and drive upon us.

THE BAPTIZED. O Father Abraham!

THE MAN. Old Eagle of glory, is it not true that my hour is not yet
come?

THE BAPTIZED. We are lost!

LEONARD (_stopping immediately in front of Count Henry_). Who are you
with that haughty face, citizen, and why do you not join in the
solemnities?

THE MAN. I hastened here when I heard of the revolution; I am a murderer
of the Spanish league, and have only arrived to-day.

LEONARD. Who is that man hiding himself in the folds of your mantle?

THE MAN. He is my younger brother. He has taken an oath to show his face
to no one, until he has at least killed a baron.

LEONARD. Of whose murder can you yourself boast?

THE MAN. My elder brothers consecrated me only two days before my
departure, and....

LEONARD. Whom do you think of killing?

THE MAN. You in the first place, if you should prove false to us!


LEONARD. For this use, brother, take my dagger!

     Hands it to him.

THE MAN. For such use my own will suffice me, brother!

MANY VOICES. Long live Leonard! Long live the Spanish murderer!

LEONARD. Meet me to-morrow in the tent of Pancratius, our citizen
general.

CHORUS OF PRIESTS. We greet thee, stranger, in the name of the Spirit of
Liberty: we intrust to thy hand a share of our emancipation!

To men who combat without cessation, who kill without pity or weakness,
who work for freedom by day, and dream of it by night, will be at last
the victory!

     They pass on out of sight.

CHORUS OF PHILOSOPHERS. We have wakened the human race, and torn them
away from the days of childhood! We have found truth, and brought it to
light from the womb of darkness! Combat, murder, and die for it,
brethren!

THE SON OF THE PHILOSOPHER (_to the Man_). Brother and friend, I drink
your health out of the skull of an old saint! May we soon meet again!

A MAIDEN (_dancing_). Kill Prince John for me!

SECOND MAIDEN. Count Henry for me!

CHILDREN. Bring us back the head of a noble for a ball.

OTHER VOICES. Good fortune guide your daggers home!

CHORUS OF ARTISTS. On these sublime old ruins we build no temples more;
we paint no pictures, mould no statues for forgotten shrines; our arches
shall be formed of pointed pikes and naked blades; our pillars built of
ghastly piles of human skulls; the capitals of human hair dyed in
gushing streams of crimson blood; our altar shall be white as snow, our
god will rest upon it, the cap of liberty: Hurrah! hurrah!

OTHER VOICES. On! on! the morning dawn already breaks!

THE BAPTIZED. They will soon catch and hang us; we are but one step from
the gallows.

THE MAN. Fear nothing, Jew, they follow Leonard, and observe us no
longer. I see with my own eyes, I understand with my own mind, and for
the last time before it engulfs me, the chaos now generating in the
abyss of Time, in the womb of Darkness, for my own destruction, for the
annihilation of my brethren!

Driven on by madness, stung by despair, my thoughts awake in all their
strength....

O God! give me again the power which Thou didst not of old deny me, and
I will condense this new and fearful world, which does not understand
itself, into _one_ burning word, but which one word will be the Poetry
of the entire Past!

VOICE IN THE AIR. Poet, thou chant'st a drama!

THE MAN. Thanks for thy good counsel!

Revenge for the desecrated ashes of my fathers--malediction upon the new
races! their whirlpool is around me, but it shall not draw me into the
giddying and increasing circles of its abyss! Keep but thy promise,
Eagle; Eagle of glory!

Jew, I am ready now for the vault of St. Ignatius!

THE BAPTIZED. The day dawns; I can go no farther.

THE MAN. Lead me on until we strike the right path; I will then release
you!

THE BAPTIZED. Why do you drag me on through mist, through thorns and
briers, through ashes and embers, over heaps of ruins? Let me go, I
entreat!

THE MAN. Forward! forward! and descend with me!

The last songs of the people are dying away behind us; a few torches
here and there just glimmer through the gloom!

Ha! under those hoary trees drooping with the night dew, and through
this curdling, whitening vapor, see you not the giant shadow of the dead
Past? Hark! hear you not that wailing chant?

THE BAPTIZED. Everything is shrouded in the thickening mist; at every
step we descend, deeper, deeper!

CHORUS OF WOOD SPIRITS. Let us weep for Christ, the persecuted, martyred
Jesus!

Where is our God; where is His church?

THE MAN. Unsheathe the sword--to arms! to arms!

I will restore Him to you; upon thousands and thousands of crosses will
I crucify His enemies!

CHORUS OF SPIRITS. We kept guard by day and night around the altar and
the holy graves; upon untiring wings we bore the matin chime and vesper
bell to the ear of the believer; our voices floated on the organ's peal!
In the glitter of the stained and rainbow panes, the shadows of the
vaulted domes, the light of the holy chalice, the blessed consecration
of the Body of our Lord--was our whole life centred!

Woe! woe! what will become of us?

THE MAN. It is growing lighter; their dim forms fade and melt into the
red of morn!

THE BAPTIZED. Here lies your way: this is the entrance to the Pass.

THE MAN. Hail! Christ Jesus and my sword! (_He tears off the liberty
cap, throws it upon the ground, and casts pieces of silver upon it.)_
Take together the Thing and the Image for a remembrance!


THE BAPTIZED. You pledge your word to me for the honorable treatment of
him who will visit you at midnight?

THE MAN. An old noble never repeats or breaks a promise!

Hail! Christ Jesus and our swords!

VOICES (_from the depths of the Pass_). Mary and our swords! Long live
our lord, Count Henry!

THE MAN. My faithful followers, to me--to me!

Aid me, Mary, and Christ Jesus!

       *       *       *       *       *

     Night. Trees and shrubbery. Pancratius, Leonard, and attendants.

PANCRATIUS (_to his attendants_). Lie upon this spot with your faces to
the turf, remain perfectly still, kindle no fires, beat no signals, and,
unless you hear the report of firearms, stir not until the dawn of day!

LEONARD. I once more conjure you, citizen!

PANCRATIUS. Lean against this tall pine, Leonard, and pass the night in
reflection.

LEONARD. I pray you, Pancratius, take me with you! Remember, you are
about to intrust yourself alone with an aristocrat, a betrayer, an
oppressor....

PANCRATIUS (_interrupting him, and impatiently gesturing to him to
remain behind_). The old nobles seldom broke a plighted promise!

       *       *       *       *       *

     A vast feudal hall in the castle of Count Henry. Pictures of
     knights and ladies hang upon the walls. A pillar is seen in the
     background bearing the arms and escutcheons of the family. The
     Count is seated at a marble table upon which are placed an antique
     lamp of wrought silver, a jewel-hilted sword, a pair of pistols, an
     hourglass, and clock. Another table stands on the opposite side,
     with silver pitchers, decanters, and massive goblets.

THE MAN. At the same hour, surrounded by appalling perils, agitated by
foreboding thoughts, the last Brutus met his Evil Genius.

I await a like apparition. A man without a name, without ancestors,
without a faith or guardian angel; a man who is destroying the Past, and
who will, in all probability, establish a new era, though himself sprung
from the very dust, if I cannot succeed in casting him back into his
original nothingness--is now to appear before me!

Spirit of my forefathers! inspire me with that haughty energy which once
rendered you the rulers of the world! Give me the lion heart which erst
throbbed in your dauntless breasts! Give me your peerless dignity, your
noble and chivalric courtesy!

Rekindle in my wavering soul your blind, undoubting, earnest faith in
Christ and in His church: at once the source of your noblest deeds on
earth, your brightest hopes in heaven! Oh, let it open for me, as it was
wont to do for you; and I will struggle with fire and sword against its
enemies! Hear me, the son of countless generations, the sole heir of
your thoughts, your courage, your virtues, and your faults!

     The castle bell sounds twelve.

It is the appointed hour: I am prepared!

     An old and faithful servant, Jacob, enters, fully armed.

JACOB. My lord, the person whom your excellency expects is in the
castle.

THE MAN. Admit him here.

     Exit Jacob.

     He reappears, announcing Pancratius, and again retires.

PANCRATIUS. Count Henry, I salute you! The word 'count' sounds strangely
on my lips.

     He seats himself, throws off his cloak and liberty cap, and fastens
     his eyes on the pillar on which hang the arms and shield.

THE MAN. Thanks, guest, that you have confided in the honor of my house!
Faithful to our ancient forms, I pledge you in a glass of wine. Your
good health, guest!

     He takes a goblet, fills, tastes, and hands it to Pancratius.

PANCRATIUS. If I am not mistaken, this red and blue shield was called a
coat of arms in the language of the Dead; but such trifles have vanished
from the face of the earth.

     He drinks.

THE MAN. Vanished? With the aid of God, you will soon look upon them by
thousands!

PANCRATIUS. Commend me to the old noble! always confident in himself,
though without money, arms, or soldiers; proud, obstinate, and hoping
against all hope; like the corpse in the fable, threatening the driver
of the hearse at the very door of the charnel house, and confiding in
God, or at least pretending to confide in Him, when confidence in
himself is no longer even possible!

Pray, Count Henry, give me but one little glimpse of the lightning which
is to be sent from heaven, for your especial benefit, to blast me and my
millions; or show me at least one angel of the thousands of the heavenly
hosts, who are to encamp on your side, and whose prowess is so speedily
to decide the combat in your favor!

     He empties the goblet.

THE MAN. You are pleased to jest, leader of the people; but atheism is
quite an old formula, and I looked for something _new_ from the _new
men_!

PANCRATIUS. Laugh, if you will, at your own wit, but my faith is wider,
deeper, and more firmly based than your own. Its central dogma is the
emancipation of humanity. It has its source in the cries of despair
which rise unceasingly to heaven from the hearts of tortured millions,
in the famine of the operatives, the grinding poverty of the peasants,
the desecration of their wives and daughters, the degradation of the
race through unjust laws and debasing and brutal prejudices--from all
this agony spring my new formulas, the creed which I am determined to
establish: _'Man has a birthright of happiness_.' These thoughts are my
god, a god which will give bread, rest, bliss, glory to man!

     He fills, drinks, and casts and goblet from him.

THE MAN. I place my trust in that God who gave power and rule, into the
hands of my forefathers!

PANCRATIUS. You trust Him still, and yet through your whole life you
have been but a plaything in the hands of the Devil!

But let us leave such discussions to the theologians, if any such still
linger upon earth:--to business, Count Henry, to stern facts!

THE MAN. What do you seek from me, redeemer of the people, citizen-god?

PANCRATIUS. I sought you, in the first place, because I wished to know
you; in the second, because I desire to save you.

THE MAN. For the first, receive my thanks; for the second, trust my
sword!

PANCRATIUS. Your God! your sword! vain phantoms of the brain! Look at
the dread realities of your situation! The curses of the millions are
upon you; myriads of brawny arms are already raised to hurl you to
destruction! Of all the vaunted Past nothing remains to you save a few
feet of earth, scarcely enough to offer you a grave. Even your last
fortress, the castle of the Holy Trinity, can hold out but a few days
longer. Where is your artillery? Where are the arms and provisions for
your soldiers? Where are your soldiers? and what dependence can you
place on the few you still retain? You must surely know there is
nothing left you on which to hang a single hope!

If I were in your place, Count Henry, I know what I would do!

THE MAN. Speak! you see how patiently I listen!

PANCRATIUS. Were I Count Henry, I would say to Pancratius: 'I will
dismiss my troops, my few retainers; I will not go to the relief of the
Holy Trinity--and for this I will retain my title and my estates; and
you, Pancratius, will pledge your own honor to guarantee me the
possession of the things I require.'

How old are you, Count Henry?

THE MAN. I am thirty-six years old, citizen.

PANCRATIUS. Then you have but about fifteen years of life to expect, for
men of your temperament die young; your son is nearer to the grave than
to maturity. A single exception, such as yours, can do no harm to the
great whole. Remain, then, where you are, the last of the counts. Rule,
as long as you shall live, in the house of your fathers; have your
family portraits retouched, your armorial bearings renewed, and think no
more of the wretched remnant of your fallen order. Let the justice of
the long-injured people be fulfilled upon them! (_He fills for himself
another cup._) Your good health, Henry, the last of the counts!

THE MAN. Every word you utter is a new insult to me! Do you really
believe that, to save a dishonored life, I would suffer myself to be
enslaved and dragged about, chained to your car of triumph?

Cease! cease! I can endure no longer! I cannot answer as my spirit
dictates, for you are my guest, sheltered from all insult while under my
roof by my plighted honor!

PANCRATIUS. Plighted honor and knightly faith have, ere this, swung from
a gallows! You unfurl a tattered banner whose faded rags seem strangely
out of place among the brilliant flags and joyous symbols of universal
humanitarian progress. Oh, I know you, and protest against your course!
Full of life and generous vigor, you bind to your heart a putrefying
corpse! You court your own destruction, clinging to a vain belief in
privileged orders, in worn-out relics, in the bones of dead men, in
mouldering escutcheons and forgotten coats of arms--and yet in your
inmost heart you are forced to acknowledge that your brother nobles have
deserved their punishment, that forgetfulness were mercy for them!

THE MAN. You, Pancratius, and your followers, what do you deserve?


PANCRATIUS. Victory and life! I acknowledge but one right, I bow to but
one law, the law of perpetual progress, and this law is your death
warrant. It cries to you through my lips: 'Worm-eaten, mouldering
aristocracy! full of rottenness, crammed with meat and wine, satiated
with luxury--give place to the young, the strong, the hungry!'

But I will save you, and you alone!

THE MAN. Cease! I will not brook your arrogant pity!

I know you, and your new world; I have visited your camp at night, and
looked upon the restless swarms upon whose necks you ride to power! I
saw all: I detected the _old_ crimes peering through the thin veils of
_new_ draperies, shining under new shams, whirling to new tunes,
circling in new dances--but the end was ever the same which it has been
for centuries, which it will forever be: adultery, license, theft, gold,
blood!

But I saw you not there; you were not with your guilty children; you
know you despise them in the depths of your soul; and if you do not go
mad yourself in the mad dances of the blood-thirsty and blood-drunken
people, you will soon scorn and despise yourself!

Torture me no more!

     He rises, moves hurriedly to and fro, then seats himself under his
     escutcheon.

PANCRATIUS. It is true my world is in its infancy, unformed and
undeveloped; it requires food, ease, material gratifications; but
it is growing, and the time will come--(_He rises from his chair,
approaches the count, and leans against the pillar supporting the
escutcheons_)--the time will come when my world will arrive at maturity,
will attain the consciousness of its own strength, when it will say, I
AM; and there will be no other voice on earth able to reply, 'I ALSO
AM!'

THE MAN. And then?

PANCRATIUS. A race will spring from the generation I am now quickening
and elevating, stronger, higher, and nobler than any the world has yet
produced; the earth has never yet seen such men upon her bosom. They
will be free, lords of the globe from pole to pole; the earth will be a
blooming garden, every part of her surface under the highest culture;
the sea will be covered with floating palaces and argosies of wealth and
commerce; a universal exchange of commodities will carry civilization,
mutual recognition, and comfort to every clime; prosperous cities will
crown every height, and expand their blessings of refinement and culture
o'er every plain; earth will then offer happy and tranquil homes to all
her children, she will be one vast and united house of blissful industry
and highest art!

THE MAN. Your words and voice dissemble well, but your pale and rigid
features in vain struggle to assume the generous glow of a noble
enthusiasm, which your soul cannot feel.

PANCRATIUS. Interrupt me not! Men have begged on bended knees before me
for such prophecies.

The world of the Future will possess a god whose highest fact will not
be his own defeat and death upon a cross; a god whom the people, by
their own power and skill, _will force_ to unveil his face to them; a
god who will be torn by the very children whom he once scattered over
the face of the earth in his anger, from the infinite recesses of the
distant heavens in which he loves to hide! Babel will be no more, all
tribes and nations will meet and understand their mutual wants, and,
united by a _universal language_, his scattered children, having
attained their majority, assert their _right_ to know their creator, and
claim their just inheritance from a common father: '_the full possession
of all truth_!'

The god of humanity at last reveals himself to man!

THE MAN. Yes, He revealed Himself some centuries ago; through Him is
humanity already redeemed.

PANCRATIUS. Alas! let the redeemed delight in the sweetness of such
redemption! let them rejoice in the multiplied agonies which have in
vain cried to a Redeemer for relief during the three thousand years
which have elapsed since His defeat and death!

THE MAN. Blasphemer, cease! I have seen the Cross, the holy symbol of
His mystic love, standing in the heart of the eternal city, Rome; the
ruins of a power far greater than thine were crumbling into dust around
It; hundreds of gods such as those you trust in, were lying prostrate on
the ground, trampled under careless feet, not even daring to raise their
crushed and wounded heads to gaze upon the Crucified. It stood upon the
seven hills, stretching its mighty arms to the east and to the west, its
holy brow glittering in the golden sunshine; men wistfully gazed upon
its perfect lesson of self-abnegating Love; it won all hearts, it RULED
THE WORLD!

PANCRATIUS. An old wife's tale, hollow as the rattling of these vain
escutcheons! (_He strikes the shield._) These discussions are in vain,
for I have read all the secrets of your yearning heart! If you really
wish to find the _infinite_ which has so long baffled your search; if
you love the _truth_, and are willing to suffer for it; if you are a
_man_, created in the image of our common humanity, and not the
impossible hero of an old nursery song--listen to me! Oh, let not these
rapidly fleeting moments, the last in which you can possibly be saved,
pass in vain! The race renews itself, man of the Past; and _of the blood
we shed to-day, no trace will be found to-morrow_! For the last time I
conjure you, if you are what you once appeared to be, A MAN, rise in
your former might, aid the down-trodden and oppressed people, help to
emancipate and enlighten your fellow men, work for the common good,
forsake your false ideas of a personal glory, quit these tottering ruins
which all your pride and power cannot prevent from crumbling o'er you,
desert your falling house, and follow me!

THE MAN. O youngest born of Satan's brood!--(_He paces up and down the
hall, speaking to himself_:) Dreams, dreams, beautiful dreams--but their
realization is impossible! Who could achieve them? Adam died in the
desert--the flaming sword still guards the gates--we are never more to
enter Paradise! In vain we dream!

PANCRATIUS (_aside_). I have driven the probe to the core of his heart;
I have struck the electric nerve of Poetry, which quivers through the
very base of his complicated being!

THE MAN. Progress of humanity; universal happiness; I once believed them
possible! There--there--take my head--my life--if that were possi--....
(_He sighs, and is silent for a moment._) It is past! two centuries ago
it might have been--but now.... But now I have seen and know there will
be nothing but assassination and murder--murder on either side--nothing
can satisfy now but an unceasing war of mutual extermination!

PANCRATIUS. Woe then to the vanquished! Falter not, seeker of universal
happiness! Cry but once with us: '_Woe to the oppressors of the
people_!' and stand preeminent o'er all, the First among the Victors!

THE MAN. Have you already explored all the paths in the dark and unknown
country of the Future? Did Destiny, withdrawing at midnight the curtains
of your tent, stand visibly before you, and, placing her giant hand upon
your scheming brain, impress upon it the mystic seal of victory? or in
the heat of midday, when the world slept, and you alone were watching,
did she glide pale, pitiless, and stern before you, and promise
conquest, that you thus threaten me with defeat and ruin? You are but a
man of clay as fragile as my own, and may be the victim of the first
well-aimed ball, the first sharp thrust of the sword! Your life, like
mine, hangs on a single thread, and you have no immunity from death!

PANCRATIUS. Dreams! idle dreams! Oh do not deceive yourself with hopes
so vain, for no bullet aimed by man will reach me, no sword will pierce
me, while a single member of your haughty caste remains capable of
resisting the task which it is my destiny to fulfil. And what doom
soever may befall me, after its completion, count, will be too late to
offer you the least advantage. (_The clock strikes._) Hark! time
flies--and scorns us both!

If you are weary of your own life, save at least your unfortunate son!

THE MAN. His pure soul is already saved in heaven: on earth he must
share the fate of his father.

     His head sinks heavily, and remains for some time buried in his
     hands.

PANCRATIUS. You reject too all hope for him?... (_Pauses._) Nay--you are
silent--you reflect--it is well: reflection becomes him who stands upon
the brink of the grave!

THE MAN. Away! away! Back from the passionate mysteries now surging
through the depths of my soul! Profane them not with a word; they lie
beyond your sphere!

The rough, wide world belongs to you; feed it with meat; flood it with
wine; but press not into the holy secrets of my heart! Away! away from
me, framer of material bliss!

PANCRATIUS. Shame upon you, warrior, scholar, poet, and yet the slave of
one idea and its dying forms! Thought and form are wax beneath my
plastic fingers!

THE MAN. In vain would you seek to follow my thoughts; you will never
understand me, for all your forefathers were buried in a common ditch,
as dead things, not as men of individual character and bold distinctive
spirit. (_He points to the portraits of his ancestors._) Look upon these
pictures! Love of country, of family, of the home hearth, feelings at
war with all your ideas, are written in every line of their firm
brows--their spirit lives entire in me, their last heir and
representative. Tell me, O man without ancestors, where is your natal
soil? You spread your wandering tent each coming eve Upon the ruins of
another's home, every morning roll it up again that it may be unrolled
anew at night to blight and spoil! Yon have not yet found a _home_, a
_hearth_, and you will never find one as long as a hundred men live to
cry with me: '_Glory to our fathers_!'

PANCRATIUS. Yes, glory to your fathers in heaven and upon earth; but it
will repay us to look at them a little more closely. (_He points to one
of the portraits._) This gentleman was a famous Starost; he shot old
women in the woods, and roasted the Jews alive: this one with the
inscription, 'Chancellor,' and the great seal in his right hand,
falsified and forged acts, burned archives, stabbed knights, and sullied
the inheritance with poison; through him came your villages, your
income, your power. That dark man played at adultery with the wife of
his friend. This one, with the golden fleece on his Spanish cloak,
served in a foreign land, when his own country was in danger.

This pale lady with the raven ringlets carried on an intrigue with a
handsome page. That one with the lustrous braids is reading a letter
from her gallant; she smiles, as well she may, for night approaches, and
love is bold.

This timid beauty with the deep blue eyes and golden curls, clasping a
Roman hound in her braceleted arm, was the mistress of a king, and
soothed his softer hours.

Such is the true history of your unbroken, ancient, and unsullied line!
But I like this jolly fellow in the green riding jacket; he drank and
hunted with the nobles, and employed the peasants to run down the tall
deer with the hounds. Indeed, the ignorance, stupidity, and wretchedness
of the serf were the strength of the noble, and give convincing proof of
his own intellect.

But the Day of Judgment is approaching: I promise you that none of your
vaunted ancestors, that nought of their fame shall be forgotten in the
dark award.

THE MAN. You deceive yourself, son of the people! Neither you nor your
brethren could have preserved existence, had not our noble ancestors
nourished you with their bread, and defended you with their blood. In
times of famine, they gave you grain, and when the plague swept over you
with its hot breath of death, they built hospitals to receive you, found
nurses to take care of you, and educated physicians to save you from the
grave. When from a herd of unformed brutes they had nurtured you into
human beings, they built schools and churches for you, sharing
everything with you save the dangers of the battle field, for war they
knew you were not formed to bear. As the sharp lance of the pagan was
wont to recoil, shattered and riven, from the glittering armor of my
fathers, so recoil your vain words as they strike the dazzling record
of their long-consecrated glory. They disturb not the repose of their
sacred ashes. Like the howlings of a mad dog, who froths, bites, and
snaps as he runs, until he is driven out of the pale of humanity, so
fall your accusations, dying out in their own insanity.

But it is almost dawn, and time you should depart from the halls of my
ancestors! Pass in safety and in freedom from their home, my guest!

PANCRATIUS. Farewell then, until we meet again upon the ramparts of the
Holy Trinity. And when your powder and ball shall be utterly exhausted?

THE MAN. _We will then approach within the length of our swords._
Farewell!

PANCRATIUS. We are twin Eagles, but your nest is shattered by the
lightning! (_He takes up his cloak and liberty cap._) In passing from
your threshold, I leave the curse, due to decrepitude, behind me. I
devote you and your son to destruction!

THE MAN. Ho! Jacob!

     Enter Jacob.

Conduct this man in safety through my last post on the hill!

JACOB. So help me God the Lord!

     Exit Jacob with Pancratius.




DEATH IN LIFE.


  In some dull hour of doubt or pain,
  Who has not felt that life is slain--
  And while there yet remain

  Long years, perhaps, of joyless mirth,
  Ere earth shall claim its kindred earth,
  Such years were nothing worth

  But that some duty still demands
  The sweating brow, the weary hands?
  And so Existence stands

  With an appeal we cannot shun,
  To make complete what Life begun,
  With toil from sun to sun.

  And so we keep the sorry tryst,
  With all its fancied sweetness missed--
  Consenting to exist

  When Life has fled beyond recall,
  And left us to its heir in thrall,
  With chains that will not fall.

  Belated stars were waning fast
  As through an open gate I passed,
  And crossed a meadow vast--

  And, still descending, followed still
  The path that wound adown the hill
  And by the ruined mill--

  Till in its garden I espied
  The cottage by the river side
  Where dwelt my promised bride.

  Beneath the porch no lantern flared,
  No watch dog kept his faithful ward,
  The window blinds were barred.

  Entering with eager eye and ear,
  And ushered by the phantom Fear,
  I stood beside the bier

  Of one who, passing hence away,
  Left something more than lifeless clay,
  As twilight lingers after day,

  The pulseless heart, the pallid lips,
  The eyes just closed in death's eclipse,
  The fairy finger tips

  So lightly locked across the breast,
  Seemed to obey the sweet behest
  By angels whispered--Rest!

  That beauty had been mine alone,
  Those hands had fondly pressed my own,
  Those eyes in mine had shone.

  The open door was banged about,
  As wailing winds went in and out
  With sigh and groan and shout.

  And darkly ran the river cold,
  Whose swollen waters, as they rolled,
  A tale of sorrow told.

  I could not choose but seek that stream,
  Whose sympathetic moan did seem
  The music of a dream.

  O River, that unceasing lay
  Charms each fair tree along thy way,
  Until it falls thy prey!

  O endless moan within my heart,
  Thy constancy has made me part
  Of what thou wert and art!

  And while I stood upon the brink,
  And tried to think, but could not think,
  Nor sight with reason link--

  A form I had not seen before
  Came slowly down the dismal shore;
  A sombre robe she wore,

  And in her air and on her face
  There was a sterner kind of grace,
  Heightened by time and place--

  A sort of conscious power and pride,
  A soul to substance more allied--
  Than that of her who died.

  With scarce a semblance of design,
  Toward me her steps she did incline,
  And raised her eyes to mine

  So sweetly, so imploringly,
  I scarcely wished, and did not try,
  To put their pleading by,

  And, ere a movement I had made,
  Her hand upon my arm she laid,
  And whispered: I obeyed.

  While one into the darkness sped,
  I followed where the other led;
  Yet often turned my head,

  As one who fancies that he hears
  His own name ringing in his ears
  Shouted from far-off spheres.

  Oh! bliss misplaced is misery!
  I love the life I've lost, but, see!
  The life that's here loves me.

  And while I seem her willing slave,
  My heart is hid in weeds that wave
  Above a distant grave.




AENONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.


CHAPTER XIV.

In an hour from that time the banqueting hall of the palace was prepared
for its guests. Silken couches had been drawn up around the table. Upon
it glittered a rich array of gold and silver. Between the dishes stood
flasks of rare wines. Upon the buffet near by were other wines cooling
in Apennine snow. Tall candelabras in worked and twisted bronze stood at
the ends and sides of the table, and stretched overhead their arms hung
with lamps. From the walls were suspended other lamps, lighting up the
tapestries and frescoes. At one end of the hall, richly scented spices
burned upon a tripod. With a readiness and celerity for which the Vanno
palace was famous, a feast fit for the emperor had been improvised in a
few minutes, and nothing was now wanting except the guests.

These now began to drop in one by one. The poet Emilius--the comedian
Bassus--the proconsul Sardesus--others of lesser note; but not one who
had not a claim to be present, by reason of intimate acquaintance or
else some peculiarly valuable trait of conviviality. In collecting
these, the armor bearer had made no mistake; and knowing his master's
tastes and intimates, he had made up the roll of guests as discreetly as
though their names had been given him. One he had met in the
street--others he had found at their homes. None to whom he gave the
invitation was backward in accepting it upon the spot, for there were
few places in Rome where equal festal gratification could be obtained.
To have been called to the house of Sergius Vanno and not to have gone
there, was to have lost a day to be forever regretted. None, therefore,
who had been spoken to, among that club of congenial spirits, was
absent. Of those who did not come, one was sick and two were at their
country villas. These, however, were lesser lights, valuable by
themselves, perhaps, but of no account in comparison with others who had
come; and therefore their absence was scarcely noticed.

Sergius stood at the door receiving his guests as each arrived. He had
arrayed himself in his most festive costume, and had evidently resolved
that whatever might happen on the morrow, that night at least should be
passed in forgetfulness and unbridled enjoyment. Even now his face was
flushed with the wine he had taken in anticipation, in the hope of
giving an artificial elation to his spirits. But it seemed as though for
that time the wine had lost its accustomed charm. Although at each
greeting he strove to wreathe his face in smiles, yet it was but a
feeble mask, and could not hide the more natural appearances of care and
gloom which rested upon his features; and while his voice seemed to
retain its old ring of joyous welcome, there was an undertone of sad
discordance. As the guests entered and exchanged greetings with their
host, each, after the first moment, looked askant at him, with the dim
perception that, in some way, he was not as he was wont to be; and so,
in a little while, they sank, one by one, into a troubled and
apprehensive silence. He, too, upon his part, looked furtively at them,
wondering whether they had yet heard the thing that had befallen him. It
was but a short time ago, indeed, and yet in how few minutes might the
unrestrained gossip of a slave have spread the ill tidings! For the
moment, Sergius recoiled from the difficult task of entertainment which
he had taken upon himself. Why, indeed, had he called these men around
him? How could he sit and pledge them in deep draughts, and all the time
suspect that each one knew his secret, and was laughing about it in his
sleeve? And if they knew it not, so much the worse, for then he must
tell the tale himself. Was it not partly for this purpose that he had
assembled them? Far better to speak of it himself--to let them see how
little he regarded the misfortune and the scandal--to treat it as a
brave jest--to give his own version of it--than to have the matter leak
out in the ordinary way, with all conceivable distortions and
exaggerations. But how, in fact, could he tell it? Was there one among
them who would not, while openly commiserating him, laugh at him in the
heart? Did there not now sit before him the lieutenant Plautus, who,
only a month before, had met with a like disgrace, and about whom he had
composed derisive verses? Would not the lieutenant Plautus now rejoice
to make retaliatory odes? Would it not b e better, then, after all, to
forbear any mention of the matter, and, letting its announcement take
the usual chance course, to devote this night, at least, to unbroken
festivity? But what if they already knew it?

Thus wandering in his mind from one debate to another, and ever, in a
moment, coming back to his original suspicion, he sat, essaying
complimentary speeches and convivial jests, and moodily gazing from face
to face, in a vain attempt to read their secret thoughts. He was wrong
in his suspicions. Not one of them knew the reason of the burden upon
his mind. All, however, perceived that something had occurred to disturb
him, and his moody spirit shed its influence around, until the
conversation once again flagged, and there was not one of the party who
did not wish himself elsewhere. The costliest viands and wines spread
out before them were ineffective to produce that festive gayety upon
which they had calculated.

'By Parnassus!' exclaimed the poet Emilius, at length, pushing aside his
plate of turbot, and draining his goblet 'Are we to sit here, hour after
hour, winking and blinking at each other like owls over their mice? Was
it merely to eat and drink that we have assembled? Hearken! I will read
that to you which will raise your spirits, to a certainty. To-morrow the
games and combats commence in the arena of the new amphitheatre. Well;
and is it known to you that I am appointed to read a dedicatory ode
before the emperor and in honor of that occasion? I will give you a
pleasure, now. I will forestall your joy, and let you hear what I have
written. And be assured that this is no small compliment to your
intelligence, since no eye hath yet looked upon a single verse thereof.'

With that the poet dragged from his breast his silken bundle, and
carefully began to unwind the covering.

'You will observe,' he said, as he brought the precious parchment to
light, and smoothed it out upon the table before him, 'you will observe
that I commence with an invocation to the emperor, whom I call the most
illustrious of all the Caesars, and liken to Jove. I then congratulate
the spectators, not only upon the joy of living in his time, but also
upon being there to bask in the effulgence of--'

'A truce to such mummery!' cried Sergius, suddenly arousing from his
spiritual stupor and bursting into a shrill laugh. 'Do we care to listen
to your miserable dactyls? Is it not a standing jest through Rome that,
for the past month, you have daily read your verses to one person after
another, with the same wretched pretence of exclusive favoritism? And do
we not know that no warrant has ever been given to you to recite a
single line before the emperor, either in or out of the arena? We are
here to revel, not to listen to your stale aphorisms upon death and
immortality. Ho, there, more wine! Take off these viands, which already
pall upon us! Bring wine-more wine!'

The guests were not slow to respond to the altered mood of their host;
for it was merely the reflection of his sullen gravity that had eclipsed
their own vivacity. The instant, therefore, that he led the way, the
hall began to resound with jest and laughter. The poet, with some
humiliation, which he endeavored to conceal beneath an affectation of
wounded dignity, commenced rolling up his manuscript, not before a
splash of wine from a carelessly filled flagon had soiled the
fair-written characters. More flasks were placed upon the table by ready
and obedient hands--and from that moment the real entertainment of the
evening commenced.

Faster than any of his guests, as though care could be the better
drowned by frequent libations, Sergius now filled and refilled his
flagon; and though the repeated draughts may not have brought
forgetfulness, yet, what was the nearest thing, they produced reckless
indifference. No longer should the cloud which he had thus suddenly
swept away from his brow be suffered to remain. Was he not master in his
own house? If woman deceives, was that a reason why man should mourn and
grow gray with melancholy? What though a random thought might at times
intrude, of one who, in the next room, with her head against the wall,
lay in a half stupor, listening to the ring of goblets and the loud
laugh and jest? Had she not brought it all upon herself? He would fill
up again, and think no more about it! And still, obedient to his
directing tone, the guests followed him with more and more unbridled
license, until the hall rang with merriment as it had never rung before.

Then, of course, came the throwing of dice, which, at that time, were as
essential a concomitant of a roystering party as, in later centuries,
cards became. Nor were these the least attraction of the feasts of
Sergius; for though the excellence of his viands and wines was
proverbial, the ease with which he could be despoiled at the gambling
table was not less so. Already he was known to have seriously crippled
his heritage by continued reverses, springing from united ill luck and
want of skill; but it was as well understood that much still remained.
And then, as now, the morality of gambling was of a most questionable
character--invited guests not thinking it discreditable to unite in any
combinations for the purpose of better pillaging their host. This seemed
now the general purpose; for, leaving each other in comparative freedom
from attack, they came forward one by one and pitted their purses, great
and small, against Sergius, who sat pouring down wine and shaking the
dicebox, while he called each by name, and contended against him. The
usual result followed; for, whether owing to secret signs among the
players, or to superior skill, the current of gold flowed but one way,
from the host to his guests. For a while he bore the continued ill luck
with undiminished gayety, deeming that in meeting their united prowess
he was doing a brave thing, and that, whatever befell him, he should
remember that in character of host, he must consent to suffer. But at
length he began to realize that his losses had been carried far enough.
He had never suffered so severely in any one evening before. Even his
duty to them as their host did not demand that he should completely ruin
himself, and he began to suspect that he had half done so already. With
a hoarse laugh he pushed the dice away, and arose.

'Enough--quite enough for one night,' he exclaimed. 'I have no more
gold, nor, if I had, could I dare to continue, with this ill run against
me. Perhaps after another campaign I may meet you again, and take my
revenge; which, if the Fates are just, must one day or another be
allotted me. But not now.'

He thought that he was firm in his refusal, but his guests had not yet
done with him. It needed but gentle violence to push him back again upon
his seat, and to replace the dicebox in his hand.

'Art weary, or afraid to continue?' said the praetorian captain. 'Well,
let there be one more main between us, and then we will end it all.
Listen! I have won this night two hundred sestertia. What is the worth
of that quarry of yours to the south of the Porta Triumphalis?'

'Three hundred sestertia--not less,' responded Sergius.

'Nay, as much as that?' rejoined the captain, carelessly throwing down
his own dice. 'Then it is useless to propose what I was about to. I had
thought that as the quarry had been well worked already, and was now
overrun with fugitive slaves and Nazarenes, and the like, to ferret out
whom would require half a legion, I could offer to put the two hundred
sestertia against it, so that you might chance to win them back. But it
is of little consequence.'

Sergius sat for the moment nervously drumming upon the table. He knew
that the other was purposely disparaging the property and trying to
tempt him into an equal stake; and yet he suffered himself to be
tempted. The luck might this time be with him. It were worth while to
try it, at least. If he lost, it would be but one more buffet of
fortune. And if he won, how easily would those two hundred sestertia
have been regained, and what a triumph over the one who had enticed him!
And therefore they threw--five times a piece; and after a moment of
breathless excitement, the play was decided in favor of the captain.

'The quarry is mine, therefore,' he said, endeavoring to assume a
nonchalant air of indifference. 'Would you still win it back, Sergius?
And the sesteria also? Well, there is that vineyard of yours on the
slope of Tivoli, which--'

'Stay!' exclaimed the proconsul Sardesus, who, of all the party had not
as yet touched the dicebox. 'Let this be enough. Will you plunder him
entirely? Have you no regard for my rights over him? Do you not know
that to-morrow, at the amphitheatre, Sergius and I are to match
gladiators against each other for a heavy wager, and that I expect to
win? How, then will I get this money, if you now strip him of all that
he owns?'

Probably the proconsul felt no fear about collecting what he might win,
and spoke jestingly, and with the sole intention of putting a stop to a
system of pillage which seemed to him already too flagrant and
unscrupulous. But his words were too plainly spoken not to give offence
at any time, more particularly now that all present were heated with
excitement; and the usual consequence of disinterested interference
ensued. The other guests in no measured language, began to mutter their
displeasure at the insinuations against themselves; while the host, for
whose benefit the interruption had been intended, resented it most
strongly of all. He needed no counsel, but was well able to take care of
himself, he intimated. And he remembered that he had entered into some
sort of a wager about the result of a gladiatorial combat, and he had
supposed that no one would have doubted his ability to pay all that he
might lose therein. It was proper, at least, to wait until there had
been some precedent of the kind proved against him. No one, so far, had
found him wanting. And the like.

'And yet,' he continued, as after a moment of reflection he began to
realise the value of the wager, and how inconvenient it would be to
lose, and that he had not yet succeeded in making any preparation for
the contest, 'when I tell you that I have not yet found a gladiator to
my mind, you will not force this match upon me to-morrow? You will
forbear that advantage, and will consent to postpone our trial to
another time?'

The proconsul shrugged his shoulders.

'Was it in the bond,' he said, 'that one should await the convenience of
the other? Has there not been time enough for each to procure his man?
This wager was made between us mouths ago, Sergius--before even you went
into the East.'

'And it was while I was there,' exclaimed Sergius eagerly, 'that I found
my man--a Rhodian, with the forehead, neck, and sinews of a bull. He
could have hugged a bull to death almost. Having him, I felt safe, for
who could you obtain to stand up against him? But in an evil hour, not
over a month ago, this play actor here--this Bassus--by a stupid trick
gained him from me. What, then, have I been able to do for myself since?
I have sought far and near to replace him, but without success; and had
made up my mind, if you would not postpone the trial, to pay up the
forfeit for not appearing, and think no more about it. But by the gods!
I will, even at this late hour, make one more attempt. Harkee, Bassus!
Whenever I have asked you about this Rhodian, you have said that you
have sold him; and, for some low reason, you have refused to tell who
owns him now. Tell me, now, to whom you sold him, so that I can purchase
him at once! Tell me, I say; or there will be blood between us!'

'What can he say,' interrupted the proconsul, 'but that he sold his
Rhodian to me, the day thereafter? You do well to praise him, Sergius.
Never have I seen such a creature of brawn and muscle. And with the
training I have given him, who, indeed, could overcome him? You will see
him to-morrow, in the arena. You will see how he will crush in the ribs
of your gladiator, like an egg shell.'

Sergius gave vent to a groan of mingled rage and despair.

'And you will not postpone this trial?' he said. 'Will you, then, take
up with an offer to play off that Rhodian against ten of my slaves? No?
Against twenty, then? What else will tempt you? Ah, you may think that I
have but little to offer to play against you, but it is not so. I have
no gold left, and my last quarry is gone. But I have my vineyards and
slaves in plenty. What say you, therefore?'

'Tush! Beseech him not!' interrupted Emilius, to whom the mention of
vineyards and slaves gave intimation of further spoils. 'Do you not see
that he shakes his head? And do you not know his obstinacy? You could
not move him now were you to pay him in full the amount of the forfeit.
It is not the gold that he longer cares for, but the chance to
distinguish himself by the exhibition of the slave of greatest strength
and prowess. So let that matter go for settled. Rather strive, in some
other manner, to win the money with which to pay your forfeit. This,
with good luck, you may do--a little here and a little there--who knows?
Perhaps even I can help you. Have I not won fifty sestertia from you? I
will now wager it back against a slave.'

'Against any slave?'

'By Bacchus, no! I have enough of ordinary captives to suit me, and care
but little for any accession to the rabble of them. But you have one
whom I covet--a Greek of fair appearance and pleasing manners--fit not
for the camp or the quarries, but of some value as a page or cupbearer.
It was but lately that I saw him, writing at your lady's dictation, and
I wished for him at once. Shall we play for him?'

'No! a thousand times, no!' exclaimed Sergius, striking the table so
heavily with his open hand that the dice danced and the flagons shook.
'Were you to offer me thrice his value--to pay off my forfeit to
Sardesus to the last sestertium--to gain me back my quarry and my
vineyards--all that I have lost--I would not give up that slave. My
purpose is sweeter to me than all the gold you could offer, and I will
not be cheated out of it. That slave dies to-morrow in the
amphitheatre--between the lion's jaws!'

'Dies? In the arena?' was the astonished exclamation.

'Is there aught wonderful in that?' Sergius fiercely cried. 'Have you
never before known such a thing as a master giving up his slave for the
public amusement? And let no man ask me why I do it. It may be that I
wish revenge, hating him too much to let him live. It may be that I seek
to be a benefactor like others, and furnish entertainment to the
populace at my own expense. It is sufficient that I choose it. Will not
any other slave answer, Emilius?'

'Nay, no other will do,' remarked the poet, throwing himself carelessly
back, with the air of one dismissing a fruitless subject from his mind.
'This was the only one whom I coveted. For any other I would not care to
shake the dicebox three times, though I might feel sure to win.'

'Will you offer the same to me, Sergius?' eagerly cried the comedian. 'I
also have won heavily from you. Will you play any other slave than this
page against fifty sestertia?'

For his only answer, Sergius seized the dice, and began impatiently to
rattle them. The eyes of Bassus sparkled with anticipated victory.

'You hear?' he cried, to all around him. 'Against my fifty sestertia he
will stake any of his slaves excepting this Greek page?'

'They all hear the terms,' retorted Sergius. 'Now throw!'

'Whether male or female?' continued Bassus, still looking around to see
that all understood.

'Are they fools? Can they not hear? Will you throw or not?' shouted
Sergius.

In a wild delirium of excitement, the comedian began the game, and in a
few minutes it was concluded. Then he leaped from his seat, crying out:

'I have won! And there can be no dispute now! You all heard that he gave
the choice of his slaves, whether male or female?'

'Fool!' sneered Sergius, throwing himself back. 'What dispute can there
be? Do you think that I would deny my word? And do you suppose I did not
know your aims, cunningly as you may think you veiled them? Would I have
given up Leta to you, if she had been of any further value to myself? By
the gods! had you waited a while, I do not know but what I would have
made her a present to you; not however, to oblige you, but to punish
her!'

The comedian listened in chopfallen amazement. Already it seemed to him
that his prize had lost half its value.

'Be at rest, though,' Sergius continued, in a contemptuous tone. 'I have
merely tired of her, that is all. Her eyes are as bright and her voice
as silvery as ever. She may not ever come to love you much, but she will
have the wit to pretend that she does; and if she makes you believe
her--as you doubtless will--it will be all the same thing to you. Who
knows, too, with what zeal she may worm herself into your affection,
under the guidance of her ambition? For, that she has ambition, you will
soon discover. By Bacchus! since you have no wife or household to fetter
your fancies, it would not surprise me were you to succumb to her wiles,
and to make of her your wife. You may recline there and smile with
incredulity; but such things have been done before this, and by men who
would not condescend to look upon one in your poor station. Yes, I will
wager that, in the end, you will make of her your wife. Well, it would
be no harm to you. She will then deceive you, of course; but what of
that? Have not better men submitted to that inevitable lot? Yes, she
will deceive you; and then will smile upon you, and you will believe her
word, and be again deceived. But you will have only yourself to blame
for it. I have warned you in advance.'


CHAPTER XV.

As the shouts of laughter elicited by the host's remark rang through the
hall, drowning the muttered response of the comedian, Leta glided softly
and rapidly from behind the screen of tapestry which veiled the open
doorway. There, crouching out of sight, she had remained concealed for
the last hour--watching the revellers through a crevice in the
needlework, and vainly hoping, either in the words or face of Sergius,
to detect some tone or expression indicative of regretful thought or
recollection of herself. When at last her name had been mentioned, for a
moment she had eagerly held her breath, lest she might lose one syllable
from which an augury of her fate could be drawn. Then, repressing, with
a violent effort, the cry of despair which rose to her lips, upon
hearing herself thus coolly and disdainfully surrendered as the stake of
a game of dice, and with less apparent regret than would have been felt
for the loss of a single gold piece, she drew the folds of her dress
closely about her and passed out.

Out through the antechamber--down the stairway--and into the central
court; no other purpose guiding her footsteps than that of finding some
place where she could reflect, without disturbance, upon the fate before
her. In that heated hall she must have died; but it might be that in the
cool, open air, she could conquer the delirium which threatened to
overwhelm her, and could thus regain her self-control. If only for five
minutes, it might be well. With her quick energy and power of decision,
even five minutes of cool, deliberate counsel with herself might suffice
to shape and direct her whole future life.

Hardly realizing how she had come there, she found herself sitting upon
the coping of the courtyard fountain. The night was dark, for thick
clouds shut out the gleam of moon and stars. No one could see her, nor
was it an hour when any one was likely to be near. From one end to the
other the court was deserted, except by herself. No light, other than
the faint glow from the windows of the banquet hall upon the story above
her. No sound beyond the sullen splash of the water falling into the
marble basin of the fountain. There was now but little to interfere with
deliberate reflection.

What demon had possessed the Fates that they should have brought this
lot upon her? It could not be the destiny which had been marked out for
her from the first. That had been a different one, she was sure. Her
instinct had whispered peace and success to her. Such were the blessings
which should have been unravelled for her from off the twirling spindle;
but some malignant spirit must have substituted another person's
deserved condemnation in place of her more kindly lot.

That she had failed in attaining the grand end of her desires was not,
of itself, the utmost of her misfortune. She had aimed high, because it
was as easy to do that as to accept a lower object of ambition. She had
taken her course, believing that all things are possible to the
energetic and daring, but, at the same time, fully realizing the chances
of failure. But to fail had simply seemed to her to remain where she
was, instead of ascending higher--to miss becoming the wife of the
imperator, but to continue, as before, the main guide and direction of
his thoughts, impulses, and affections.

And now, without previous token or warning, had come upon her the
terrible realization that she had not only gained nothing, but had lost
all, and that the fatal chance which had fettered her schemes, had also
led to her further degradation. Thrown aside like a broken toy-with a
jeering confession that she had wearied her possessor--with a cool,
heartless criticism upon her character, and with cruel prophecies about
her future--gambled for with one whose sight filled her with
abhorrence--and, when won, made over to him as a bone is tossed to a
dog--what more bitterness could be heaped upon her?

But there was now no use in mourning about the past. What had been done
could not be altered. Nor could she disguise from herself the
impossibility of ever regaining her former position and influence. Those
had passed away forever. She must now look to the future alone, and
endeavor so to shape its course as to afford herself some relief from
its terrors. Possibly there might yet be found a way of escape.

Should she try to fly? That, she knew, could not be done--at least,
alone. The world was wide, but the arm of the imperial police was long;
and though she might, for a little while, wander purposelessly hither
and thither, yet before many hours the well-directed efforts of a
pursuer would be sure to arrest her. She could die--for in every place
death is within reach of the resolute; but she did not wish to die. For
one instant, indeed, she thought of the Tiber, and the peace which might
be found beneath its flow--but only for an instant. And she almost
thanked the gods in her heart that it had not yet gone so far with her
as that.

Burying her face in her hands, she sat for a moment, endeavoring to
abstract her thoughts from all outward objects, so as the more readily
to determine what course to adopt. But for a while it seemed as though
it was impossible for her to fix her mind aright. Each instant some
intruding trifle interfered to distract her attention from the only
great object which now should claim it. A long-forgotten incident of the
past would come into her mind--or perhaps some queer conceit which at
the time had caused laughter. She did not laugh now, but none the less
would she find herself revolving the merits of the speech or action.
Then, the soft fall of the water into the fountain basin annoyed her,
and it occurred to her that it might be this--which prevented undivided
reflection. Stooping over, therefore, and feeling along the edge of the
basin, she found the vent of the pipes, and stopped the flow. At once
the light stream began to diminish and die away, until in a moment the
water was at rest, except for the few laggard drops which one by one
rolled off the polished shoulders of the bronze figures. These gradually
all trickled down, and then it seemed as though at last there must be
silence. But the murmur of the evening breeze among the trees
intervened; and, far more exasperating than all, she could now hear the
bursts of merriment which rang out from the banqueting room overhead.
Therefore, once more putting her hand into the basin, she turned on the
flow, and the gentle stream again sprang from the outstretched cup and
fell down, deadening all lesser sounds.

Then Leta looked up at the sky, overspread with its thick pall of
clouds, and wondered vacantly whether there would be rain upon the
morrow, and if so, whether the games appointed for the new amphitheatre
would take place. But she recovered herself with a start, and again
buried her face in her hands. What were games and combats of that kind
to her? She was to enter upon a different kind of struggle. She must
reflect--reflect!--and when she had reflected, must act!

For ten minutes she thus remained; and now, indeed, seemed to have
gained the required concentration of thought. No outward sound disturbed
her. Once a Nubian slave, who had heard the stoppage of the fountain's
flow, emerged from beneath an archway, as though to examine into the
difficulty. Finding that the water was still playing as usual, he
imagined that he must have been mistaken, gave utterance to an oath in
condemnation of his own stupidity, slowly walked around the basin,
looked inquiringly at Leta, and, for the moment, made as though he would
have accosted her--and then, changing his mind, withdrew and walked back
silently into the house. Still she did not move.

At length, however, she raised her head and stood upright. Her eyes now
shone with deep intensity of purpose, and her lips were firmly set.
Something akin to a smile flickered around the corners of her mouth,
betraying not pleasure, but satisfaction. She had evidently reflected to
some purpose, and now the trial for action had arrived.

'Strange that I should not have thought of it before,' she murmured to
herself. Then stepping under the archway which led from the courtyard
into the palace, she reached up against the wall and took down two keys
which hung there. Holding them tightly, so that they might not clink
together, she glided along, past the fountain--through the clump of
plane trees--keeping as much as possible in the deeper shadows of arch
and shrubbery--and so on along the whole length of the court, until she
stood by the range of lower erections which bounded its farther
extremity. Then, fitting one of the keys into an iron door, she softly
unlocked it.

Entering, she stood within a low stone cell. It was the prison house of
the palace, used for the reception of new slaves, and for the punishment
of such others as gave offence. It was a long, narrow apartment, paved
with stone and lighted by a single grated aperture set high in the wall
upon the courtyard side. The place was of sufficient dimensions to hold
fifty or sixty persons, but, in the present case, there was but one
tenant--Cleotos---Not even a guard was with him, for the strength of the
walls and the locks were considered amply sufficient to prevent escape.

Cleotos was sitting upon a stone bench, resting his head upon his right
hand. At the opening of the door he looked up. He could not see who it
was that entered, but the light tread and the faint rustle of a waving
dress sufficiently indicated the sex. If it had been daylight, a flush
might have been seen upon his face, for the thought flashed upon his
mind that it might be AEnone herself coming to his assistance. But the
first word undeceived him; and he let his head once more fall between
the palms of his hands.

'Cleotos,' whispered Leta, 'it is I. I have come to set you free.'

'It is right,' he said, moodily. 'All this I owe to you alone. It is
fit that you should try to undo your work.'

'Could I foresee that it would come to this?' she responded, attempting
justification. 'How was I to know that my trivial transgression would
have ended so sorrowfully for you? But all that is easily mended. You
have money, and a token which will identify you to the proper parties.
There is yet time to reach Ostia before that ship can sail.'

'How knew you that I had gold--or this signet ring; or that there was a
ship to sail from Ostia?' he exclaimed with sudden fierceness. 'You,
then, had been listening at the door! And having listened, you must have
known with what innocence we spoke together! And yet, seeing all this,
you called him to the spot and left him to let his eyes be deceived and
his heart filled with bitter jealousy, and have played upon his passion
by wicked misrepresentation, until you have succeeded in bringing ruin
upon all about you! I see it all now, as clearly as though it were
written upon a parchment rolled out before me! To think that the gods
have beheld you doing this thing, and yet have not stricken you dead!'

'I have sinned,' she murmured, seizing his hand and bending over, so
that a ready tear rolled down upon it. He felt it fall, but moved not.
Only a few days before, her tears would have moved him; but now his
heart was hardened against her. He had found out that her nature was
cruel and not easily moral to repentance, and that, if emotion was ever
suffered to overcome her, it was tolerated solely for some crafty
design. The falling tear, therefore, simply bade him be upon his guard
against deceit, lest once again she might succeed in weaving her wiles
about him. Or, if she really wept with repentance, he knew that it was
not repentance for the sin itself, but rather for some baffled purpose.

'Go on,' he simply said.

'I have sinned,' she repeated, still clinging to his hands. 'But, O
Cleotos! when I offer to undo my work and set you free, you will surely
forgive me?'

'Yes, it is right that you should repair the mischief you have caused,'
he repeated; 'and I will avail myself of it. To-night, since you offer
to set me free, and claim that you have the power to do so--to-night for
Ostia; and then, then away forever from this ruthless land! But stay!
What of our mistress? I will not go hence until I know that she is safe
and well.'

'She is well,' responded Leta, fearful lest the truth might throw a new
obstacle before her plans. 'And all is again right between her lord and
herself, for I have assured him of her innocence.'

'Then, since this is so, there is no motive for me to tarry,' he said.
He believed her, and was satisfied; not that he esteemed her worthy of
belief, but because it did not seem to him possible that such a matter
as a grateful kiss upon a protecting hand could require much
explanation. 'I would like well once more to see her and bid her
farewell, and utter my thanks for all her kindness; but to what purpose?
I have done that already, and could do and say no more than I have
already done and said. There remains, therefore, nothing more than to
fulfil her commands, and return to my native home. But tell her, Leta,
that my last thought was for her, and that her memory will ever live in
my heart.'

'I cannot tell her this,' slowly murmured Leta, 'for I shall not see her
again. I--I go with you.'

Cleotos listened for a moment in perplexed wonderment, and then, for his
sole answer, dropped her hand and turned away. She understood him as
well as though he had spoken the words of refusal.

'You will not take me with you, then; is it not so?' she said. 'Some
nice point of pride, or some feeling of fancied wrong, or craving for
revenge, or, perhaps, love for another person, tells you now to separate
yourself from me! And yet you loved me once. This, then, is man's
promised faith!'

'You dare to talk to me of faith and broken vows!' he exclaimed, after a
moment of speechless amazement at her hardiness in advancing such a
plea. 'You, who for weeks have treated me with scorn and
indifference--who have plotted against me, until my life itself has been
brought into danger--who, apart from all that, cast me off when first we
met in Rome, telling me then that I was and could be nothing to you,
yes, even that our association from the first had been a mistake and a
wrong! Yes, Leta, there was a time when I truly loved you, as man had
never then done, or since, or ever will again; but impute not to me the
blame that I cannot do so now.'

'I was to blame,' she said; and it seemed that this night must be a
night of confession for her, in so few things could she justify herself
by denial or argument. 'I acknowledge my fault, and how my heart has
been drawn from you by some delusion, as powerful and resistless as
though the result of magic. But when I confess it freely, and tell you
how I now see my duty and my heart more clearly, as though a veil of
after all, I find no forgiveness in your heart, said I not truly that
man's faith cannot be trusted? Am I not the same Leta as of old?'

'The same as of old?' he exclaimed. 'Can you look earnestly and
truthfully into your soul, and yet avow that you are the pure-hearted
girl who roamed hand in hand with me only a year ago, in our native
isle, content to have no ambition except that of living a humble life
with me? And now, with your simple tastes and desires swept away--with
your soul covered with love of material pleasures as with a lava
crust--wrapt up in longing for Rome's most sinful, artificial
excesses--having, for gold or position or power or ambition, or what
not, so long as it was not for love, given yourself up a willing victim
to a heartless master--do you dare, after this, to talk to me of love,
and call yourself the same?'

'And are you one of those who believe that there can be no forgiveness
for repentant woman?'

'Of forgiveness, all that can be desired; but of forgetfulness, none.
There is one thing that no man can forget; and were I to repulse the
admonitions of my judgment, and strive to pass that thing by, who would
sooner scorn me than yourself? Let all this end. Know that I love you
not, and could never love you again. Your scorn, indifference, and
deceit have long ago crushed from my heart all the love it once held.
Know further, that if I did still love you, my pride would condemn the
feeling, and I would never rest until I had destroyed it, even were it
necessary to destroy myself rather than to yield.'

'These are brave words, indeed!' she exclaimed, taunted by his rebuke
into a departure from her assumption of affection. 'But they better suit
the freeman upon his own mountain side than the slave in his cell. Samos
is still afar off. The road from here to Ostia has not yet been
traversed by you in safety. Even this door between you and the open
street has not been thrown back. And yet you dare to taunt me, knowing
that I hold in my hand the key, and, by withdrawing it, can take away
all hope from you. Do you realize what will be your fate if you remain
here--how that on the morrow the lions and leopards of the amphitheatre
will quarrel over your scattered limbs?'

'Is this a threat?' he cried. 'Is it to tell me that if I do not give my
love where my honor tells me it should not be given, I must surely die!
So, then, let it be. I accept the doom. One year ago, I would have
cheerfully fought in the arena for your faintest smile. Now I would
rather die there than have your sullied love forced upon me.'

Without another word he sat down again upon the stone bench. Even in
that darkness she could note how resolute was his expression, how firm
and unyielding his attitude. She had roused his nature, as she had never
seen it before. She had not believed that a spirit which she had been
accustomed to look upon as so much inferior in strength to her own,
could show such unflinching determination; and for the moment she stood
admiring him, and wondering whether, if he had always acted like that,
he might not have bound her soul to his own and kept her to himself
through all temptation and trial. Then, taking the other key, she
unlocked the door in the rear wall of the cell, and threw it open. The
narrow street behind the court was before him, and he was free to go.

'I meant it not for a threat,' she said. 'However low I may sink, I have
not yet reached the pass of wishing to purchase or beg for affection.
Why I spoke thus, I know not. It may be that I thought some gratitude
might be due me for rescuing you. But I cannot tell what I, thought. Or
it might have been that words were necessary for me, and that I used the
first that came. But let that pass. Know only that your safety lies
before you, and that it is in your power to grasp it. And now, farewell.
You leave me drifting upon a downward course, Cleotos. Sometimes,
perhaps, when another person is at your side, making your life far
happier than I could have made it, you will think kindly of me.'

'I think kindly of you now, Leta,' he said. 'Whatever love I can give,
apart from the love which I once asked you to accept, is yours. In
everything that brotherly affection can bestow, there will be no limit
to my care and interest for you. Nay, more, you shall now go away from
hence with me; and though I cannot promise more than a brother's love,
yet with that for your guide and protection, you can reach your native
home in peace and security, and there work out whatever repentance you
may have here begun.'

'And when we are there, and those who have known us begin to ask why,
when Cleotos has brought Leta back in safety, he regards her only as a
sister and a friend, and otherwise remains sternly apart from her, what
answer can be given which will not raise suspicion and scorn, and make
my life a burden to me? No, Cleotos, it cannot be. Cruel as my lot may
be here, I have only myself to answer for it, and it is easier to hide
myself from notice in this whirl of sin and passion than if at home
again. And whatever may henceforth happen to me, the Fates are surely
most to blame. How can one avoid his destiny?'

'The Fates do not carve out our destiny,' he said. 'They simply carry
into relentless effect the judgments which our own passions and
weaknesses pronounced upon ourselves. O Leta! have you considered what
you are resolved upon encountering? Do you not know that some day this
master of yours will tire of you, and fling you to some friend of his--a
soldier, actor, or what not--that as the years run on and your beauty
fades, you will fall lower and lower? Have not thousands like yourself
thus gone on, until at last, becoming old and worthless, they are left
to die alone upon some island in the Tiber? Pray that you may die a
better death than that!'

'It is a sad picture,' she answered. 'It is not merely possible, but
also probable. I acknowledge it all. And yet, if I saw it all unrolled
before me as my certain doom, I do not know that I would try to shun it.
Already the glitter of this world has changed my soul from what it was,
and I am now too feeble of purpose to spend long years in retrieving the
errors of the past. There came into my heart a thought--a selfish
thought--that you might forget what has gone before; and then it seemed
that I might succeed in winning back my peace, and so shun the fate
which lies before me. But you cannot forget. I blame you not: you are
right. You have never spoken more truly than when you said that I would
have despised you if you had yielded. Therefore, that hope is gone; and
now I must submit to the destiny which is coming upon me.'

'But, Leta, only strive to think that--'

'Nay, what is the use? Rather let me throw all regrets away, and strive
not to think at all. Why not yield with a pleasant grace to the current,
when we know that, in the end, struggle as we may, it will surely sweep
us under?'

'Leta--dear Leta--'

'Not a word, dear Cleotos; it must not be. From this hour I banish all
human affections from my heart, as I banish all hope. Could you remain
here, you would see how relentless and fierce my nature will grow. Plots
and schemes shall now be my amusement; for if I must be destroyed,
others shall fall with me. This must be the last tender impulse of my
life. I know not why it is, but I could now really weep. Cleotos,
forgive me! I came hither, loving you not, but hoping to beguile you
into receiving me again. I have failed, and I ought to hate you for it;
and yet I almost love you instead. It is strange, is it not?

'But, Leta--'

'How my heart now feels soft and tender with our recollections of other
days! Do you remember, Cleotos, how once, when children, we went
together and stole the grapes from Eminides's vine? And how, when he
would have beaten you, I stood before you, and prevented him? Who would
then have thought that, in a few years, we should be here in
Rome--slaves, and parting forever? We shall never again together see
Eminides's vineyard, shall we?'

'O Leta--my sister--'

'There, there; speak not, but go at once, for some one comes near. Tarry
no longer. If at home they ask after me, tell them I am dead. Farewell,
dear Cleotos. Kiss me good-by. Do not grudge me that, at least. And may
the gods bless you!'

He would still have spoken, would have claimed a minute to plead with
her and try to induce her to leave the path she was pursuing, and go
with him. But at that instant the voice of some one approaching sounded
louder, and the tones of Sergias could be distinguished as he tried to
troll forth the catch of a drinking melody. There was no time to lose.
With a farewell pressure of her arm about Cleotos's neck, Leta pushed
him through the aperture into the dark back street; and then, leaving
the keys in the locks, turned back into the garden, and fled toward the
house.




CREATION.


The primary characteristics of creation are aggregation, producing all
existing forms; and dissolution, in which the parts suffer
disintegration, their varied elements entering into new combinations.
The active powers producing such normal condition of matter, which is
ceaseless motion, are comprehended in attraction for aggregation, and
repulsion for dissolution, alternately. This power of combing atoms and
dissolving their connection is electric, which is only possessed by that
element, in its dual character of attraction and repulsion; and thus we
may reasonably assume that electricity is the material wherewith
creative energy manifests its power in the varied combinations,
dissolutions, and reconstructions which comprise all animate and
inanimate existences. This same cosmical power, electricity, holds all
worlds in their normal relations, and is the source of light and heat,
as well as the connecting link, through our electric nerve cords, by
which our minds alone commune with the outer world, in direct contact
with our bodily senses, and hence becomes the medium of all our
knowledge.

       *       *       *       *       *

ELECTRICITY AS THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, HEAT, GRAVITATION, AND THE ORIGIN op
ALL GLOBES, NEBULAE, AND COMETIC MATTER.

If space were wholly devoid of matter, all globes, or other masses of
matter, would be dissipated into it, or _a priori_ could not have been
formed from it. The material interchange, passing through space, between
globes, in all stages of formation, such as light, heat, and
gravitation, could not be conducted through a vacuum, as their very
presence would be destructive of vacuity. Materiality would be
dissipated or absorbed in an attempted passage through vacuity;
therefore, as we know that light, heat, and gravitation are,
necessarily, material, space is but diffused materiality, at its minimum
of etheriality. Globes moving in their orbits and on their axes must
thus meet with resistance: this, together with the internal motion of
their contained elements, necessarily excites the constant production of
electricity, in its dual character of attraction and repulsion,
according to its well-known laws; and this double character, alone
possessed by electricity, when concentrated produces material affinity,
with reciprocal attraction and repulsion, in all its atoms, thus forever
preventing entire solidity or entire separation of its parts. Such
condensation of matter by electric action, is the origin of heat and the
variety produced by incandescence, which, therefore, accounts for the
formation of globes from the materials in space, and their sustentation
in orbit.

As motion is the normal condition of matter, and is the producer of
electricity, therefore electric actions, concentrated in space,
necessarily gathers cometic and nebulous matter from space, the
materials, through incandescence, for future globes, with orbits
contracting in proportion to condensation, its maximum of attraction. As
material space is boundless, so the creation of globes is endless
therein, through electric action, by producing gradual centres of
material condensation, the mere whirlpool specks in infinite space.

Revolving bodies, gaseous, fluid, or solid, thus impress or charge the
centres of their motion, by superinduced attraction, with electricity,
as their Leyden jars. So, too, the central body, or primary of a system,
so overcharged with electricity by its revolving secondaries, becomes
positively electrified or repellant to all such revolving bodies; and
thus the producers and accumulator are mutually attractive and repellant
of each other.

The planets, by their lightning speed in orbits and on their axes, being
producers, and the sun the recipient or accumulator of electricity; the
latter, as the centre of our revolving system, is the Leyden jar, and
thus becomes the overcharged positive source and dispenser of electric
light and heat to the surrounding planets.

The planets, as producers, are always negatively electric, tending
toward the accumulator, the sun; while the latter, as the accumulator,
being overcharged, is positively electric, and repels. The sun being the
greater body, the planets' negative electric attraction for it must
always yield to the greater mass and tend toward the sun; while that
great body, overcharged with accumulated positive electricity, is fully
capable of repelling such tendency of the lesser revolving planets
toward it. Attraction or gravitation with the planets, and repulsion
(instead of centrifugal force) with the sun, forever and inexhaustibly
retain the various bodies, of each system, in their respective orbits.
As motion is the normal condition of matter, eternally producing
electric action, and when centralized evolving light and heat; so light
and heat are as inexhaustibly eternal as motion, and may thus be
demonstrated as electric. The same principle of action applies to all
individual globes of each separate system, conjointly; and collectively,
the different systems mutually attract and repel each other,
proportionate to mass and the weakened forces of distance, thus
preserving a cosmical harmony throughout creation, forever forbidding
collision or destruction of individual globes.

This theory will be found to correspond with the well-known laws of
positive and negative electric action; as well as illustrative of the
influence of electric light on vegetable production--the only
artificially produced light, capable of imparting a healthy growth, and
color--which, I think, clearly proves it to be of the same character as
solar light. It is also corroborative of much that is inexplicable,
except in the identity of electricity with solar effulgence, as the
source of light, heat, and gravitation, as well as substituting
repulsion for centrifugal force, and must forever disprove the theory of
solar light being the result of mere metallic incandescence, or any
other equally exhausting combustion. The latter theory, with such
supposed expedients in nature, to carry out the mighty design of
creation, belittles the subject by its transitoriness, and is,
therefore, unworthy the conception of modern generations.




PHENOMENA OF HAZE, FOGS, AND CLOUDS.


The predominant haze, which generally envelops the landscape and reddens
the sun and moon during long droughts, is usually ascribed to smoke from
burning woods and forests, pervading the air. I have observed a similar
prevalent haze, connected with other extensive droughts than the one
from which the country is now (August) suffering, and have invariably
heard the same vague and inadequate cause assigned. Observation proves
conclusively, that the assigned is not the true general cause (although
it has its purely local effect), as with winds, for days together, in
opposite quarters from local fires on mountain or plain, such widespread
districts remain enveloped in haze, although hundreds of miles distant.
Neither over such districts was there any odor as from smoke pervading
the atmosphere (except temporarily from some neighboring chimneys, which
the then heavy air kept near the earth), nor felt by the eyes, which
very perceptibly smart when exposed to smoke. It is impossible, with
varying winds, that mere local fires should spread smoke so uniformly as
to comprise most of the area of the drought, which on this occasion
extended from our great western lakes to the Atlantic seacoast; and
anomalously, too, that it should have continued so long after a rain had
extinguished those fires.

I should assign a very different cause for this phenomenon. Rain drops
are negatively electric, while suspended moisture, such as fog, displays
itself in the form of vesicles or globules, distended by the presence
and prevalence of positive electricity, which refracts the rays of light
from so many myriad surfaces, that all objects are thus, necessarily,
obscured to the eye. During droughts, when haze prevails, positive
electricity in the air becomes in excess, which is heating, and
therefore serves still more to subdivide, as well as to expand or
distend the floating moisture in the atmosphere (of which it is never
entirely deprived) into infinitesimal vesicles, or globules, like minute
soap bubbles, and thus from such an infinite number of refracting
surfaces is produced the haze, as well as the obscuration of the
landscape and the reddened disks of the sun and moon, by the absorption
of their heat or red rays, so characteristic of great droughts. This
same infinitesimal vesicular condition of suspended moisture, is also
the sufficient cause of there being no deposition of dew on such
occasions, except where a local change of electric condition cools the
air, thus temporarily clearing the atmosphere, and permitting a local
deposition of the previously suspended moisture, in the form of dew.

All fogs are due to this same cause, as well as that which, in extreme
wintry cold, overhangs the open water, as it yields its comparative heat
to the air. The formation and suspension of clouds, in all their varied
characteristics, have the same origin. That highly attenuated haze which
invests the distant landscape, particularly mountains, with its magical
purple hue, is due to the same, but still more ethereal interposition of
infinitesimal globules of suspended moisture. In corroboration of this
being the true explanation of the phenomena of haze, fogs, etc., is the
fact, that as soon as clouds prevail, denoting an electric change in the
atmosphere, all haze immediately disappears, or becomes embraced in the
larger vesicles or globules, forming clouds.




FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER.

PART II.--CHEVRONS.


She sewed them on upside down. Please to remember that this was in May,
1861 (or was it 1851? it seems a long time ago), when a young lady of
the most finished education, polished to the uttermost nine, could not
reasonably be expected to know what a sergeant-major was, much less the
particular cut and fashion of his badge of rank. I told her, exultingly,
that I was appointed sergeant-major of our battalion. 'What's that?' she
inquired, simply enough. I explained. The dignity and importance of the
office was scarcely diminished in her mind by my explanation; and,
indeed, I thought it the grandest in the army. Who would be a
commissioned officer, when he could wear our gorgeous gray uniform,
trimmed with red, the sleeves wellnigh hidden behind three broad red
stripes in the shape of a V, joined at the top by as many broad red
arcs, all beautifully set off by the lithe and active figure of
Sergeant-Major William Jenkins? As for Mary, who protested that she
never could learn the difference between all these grades, or make out
the reason for them, she was for her part convinced that not even the
colonel himself, certainly not that fat Major Heavysterne, could be
grander, or handsomer, or more important than her William. So I forgave
her for sewing on my chevrons upside down, although it was at the time
an infliction grievous to be born, inasmuch as the fussy little
quartermaster-sergeant was thereby enabled to get a day's start of in
the admiration and envy of our old company. How they envied us, to be
sure! But I had one consolation: Oates' were all straight; mine were
arched. And _she_ sewed mine on. His were done by Cutts & Dunn's
bandy-legged foreman.

There never was such a uniform as ours. Not even the 'Seventh'
itself--incomparable in the eyes of the _three_-months'--could vie in
grand and soldierly simplicity, we thought, with the gray and red of the
9th Battalion, District of Columbia Volunteers. Gray cap, with a red
band round it, letters A S, for 'American Sharpshooters' (Smallweed used
to say he never saw it spelt in that way before, and to ask anxiously
for the other S), gray single-breasted frock coat, with nine gilt
buttons, and red facings on the collar and cuffs. Gray pantaloons, with
a broad red stripe down the outer seam. The drummers sported the most
gorgeous red stomachs ever seen, between two rows of twenty little
bullet buttons. The color rendered us liable to be mistaken for the
rebels, it is true; but this source of anxiety to the more nervous among
us was happily prevented from leading to any unfavorable results by the
fatherly care displayed by poor old General Balkinsop, under whose
protection, we were sent into the field, in always keeping at least a
day's march from the enemy!

When we non-commissioned staff officers were first promoted, we felt
badly about leaving our companies; wanted to drill with them still, and
so on. But this soon wore off under the pressure of new duties. For my
part, I soon found that the adjutant, Lieutenant Harch, regarded it as
quite a natural arrangement that the sergeant-major should attend to the
office duties, while the adjutant occupied himself exclusively with what
he was pleased to style the military part of the business; meaning
thereby, guard mounting every morning and Sunday morning, inspection
once a week, making an average of, say, twenty minutes work per diem for
the adjutant, and leaving the poor sergeant-major enough to occupy and
worry him for ten or eleven hours. 'Sergeant-major, publish these
orders,' Lieutenant Harch would say, in tones of authority exceeding in
peremptory curtness anything I have ever heard since from the commander
of a grand army; and then, scraping a match--my match--upon the wall, he
would begin attending to his 'military duties' by lighting a cigar--my
cigar--and strolling up the avenue, on exhibition, preparatory to going
home to dine, while the fag remained driving the pen madly, kindly
assisted sometimes by Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, until long after the
dinner hour of the non-commissioned staff. I think the company
commanders must sometimes have doubted (unless they carefully refrained
from reading orders, as I have sometimes thought probable) whether the
adjutant could write his name; for all our orders used to be signed:

                'By order of Major JOHNSON HEAVYSTERNE:
                          FREDERICK HARCH, 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant,
                                   By WILLIAM JENKINS, Sergeant-Major.'

Now, if the printer sets this up properly, you will see that, even at
that early day, we knew too much to adopt the sensation style of signing
orders which some officers have since learned from the _New York
Herald_, thus:

                          By command of
                                Major-General BULGER!
                                   WASHINGTON SMITH, A. A.-G.

In those days there was but little of that distinction of ranks which
has come to be better observed now that our volunteers have grown into
an army. You see, the process of forming an army out of its constituent
element follows pretty much the fashion set by that complex machine the
human animal: the materials go through all the processes of swallowing,
digestion, chylifaction, chymifaction, absorption, alteration, and
excretion; bone, muscle, nerve, sinew, viscera, and what not, each
taking its share, and discarding the useless material that has only
served, like bran in horse feed, to give volume and _prehensibility_ to
the mass. Our non-commissioned staff messed with the major, who was as
jolly a bachelor as need be, of some forty-nine years of growth, and
thirty of butchering, that being his occupation. The adjutant, being
newly married to a gaunt female, who, I hope, nagged him as he us,
_preferred_ to take his meals at home. Smallweed, who had somehow got
made quartermaster, couldn't go old Heavysterne, he said, and so kept as
long as he could to his desultory habits of living as a citizen and a
bachelor. So our mess consisted of the major, who exercised a paternal
care over the rest of us, superintending, indeed often joining in, our
amusements and discussions, our quarrels and makings up; of
Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates, who knew all about everything and
everybody better than anybody, and was always ready to ventilate his
superior knowledge on the slightest provocation, and who, as Smallweed,
now Lieutenant Smallweed, used to say, 'would have made a d----d elegant
quartermaster-sergeant, if he hadn't had a moral objection to issuing
anything;' of Chaplain Bender, a sanctified-looking individual of
promiscuous theology and doubtful morals (the funny men used to speak of
him irreverently as Hell Bender); of the battalion commissary,
Lieutenant Fippany, an unmitigated swell; of Commissary-Sergeant Peck, a
stumpy little fellow, full of facts and figures, and always quiet and
ready; of the writer, Sergeant-Major Jenkins, or Jinkens as my name used
to be mispronounced, infinitely to my disgust; and lastly,
semi-occasionally, of the sutler, Mr. Cann. The surgeon, old Doctor
Peacack, ran a separate mess, consisting of himself, the assistant
surgeon, Dr. Launcelot Cutts, and hospital steward Spatcheloe.

The drum-major, Musician Tappit, having refused to be mustered in, and
the War Department having presently refused to let us have any musicians
at all, used to appear only on parades, gorgeous in his gray uniform and
ornamental red stomach, disappearing with exemplary regularity, and
diving into his upholsterer's cap and baize apron upon the slightest
prospect of work or danger. I don't think it was ever my bad fortune to
eat more unpleasant meals than those eaten at our mess table. The
officers, excepting the major, but specially including the chaplain,
used to insist on being helped first and excessively to everything; also
on inviting their friends to dine on our plates, there being no extra
ones; also on giving us the broken chairs, one in particular, that was
cracked in a romp between the chaplain and the adjutant, and that
pinched you when you sat on it. Then Lieutenant Harch was always playing
adjutant at the dinner table, settling discussions _ex cathedra_ in a
sharp tone, and ordering his companions to help him to dishes, as thus:
'Sergeant-Major, p'tatoes!' 'Oates, beef!' 'Hurry up with those beans!'
To be monosyllabic, rude to his superiors and equals, and overbearing to
his inferiors in rank, this fledgling soldier--our comrade of a few days
since, and presently the subordinate of most of us, through standing
still while we went ahead--used to think the perfection and essence of
the military system. And then that smug-faced, smooth-tongued,
dirty-looking chaplain, with his second-hand shirt collars and slopshop
morality--was it whiskey or brandy that his breath smelt oftenest of? He
was the first chaplain I had seen, and I confess his rank breath, dirty
linen, and ranker and dirtier hypocrisy, gave me a disgust toward his
order that it took long months and many good men to obliterate.

The best part of May we spent in drilling and idling and grumbling, and
some of us, not so hard worked as Sergeant-Major Jenkins, in the true
military style of conviviality, usually terminating in an abrupt entry
in the orderly book, opposite the name of the follower of Bacchus,
'Drunk; two extra tours guard duty;' or 'Drunk again; four extra tours
knapsack drill.' Now, the knapsack drill, as practised by well-informed
and duty-loving sergeants of the guard, simply consists in requiring the
delinquent to shoulder, say, for two hours in every six, a knapsack
filled with stones, blankets, or what not, until it weighs twenty,
thirty, or perhaps forty pounds, according to the nature of the case and
the officer who orders the punishment.

Quartermaster-Sergeant Oates and I went up, one afternoon, with
Lieutenant Smallweed, Corporal Bledsoe of our old company, and two or
three others, to see the famous 'Seventh' drill, out at Camp Cameron,
which I suppose nearly everybody knows is situated about a mile and a
half north of the President's house, on the 14th-street road, and just
opposite to a one-horse affair that used to call itself 'Columbian
College,' but which, after passing through a course of weak
semi-religio-secessionism, gradually dried up, leaving its skin to the
surgeon-general for a hospital. The afternoon we selected to visit Camp
Cameron turned out to be an extra occasion. General Thomas, the
adjutant-general of the army, was to present a stand of colors to the
'Seventh' on behalf of Mr. Secretary Cameron, on behalf of some ladies,
I think. Ladies! I admire you very much, for the very many things
wherein you are most admirable, but why, oh! why, in the name of the
immortals, will you, why will you present flags? Don't do it any more,
please. They are always packed up in a box and left somewhere almost as
soon as your handkerchiefs have ceased waving, your soprano hurrahs
ceased ringing; or else they are given to some pet officer for a
coverlet. They cost a great deal of money; they oblige the poor soldiers
to endure a mort of flatulent oratory at a parade rest; and they force
the poor colonel, in a great perspiration, to stumble through a few
feeble, ineffectual, and disjointed words of thanks, which he committed
to memory last night from the original, written for him by the adjutant
or the young regimental poet, but of which he has forgotten almost every
other word. The wise old Trojan says, speaking of the horse (I get my
quotations from the newspapers, you may be sure):

     'Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes;'

implying that he is opposed to going into that speculation in wooden
horseflesh, because he fears the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.
Just so, I fear the ladies, especially when they present flags. Remember
_Punch's_ advice to young persons about to be married? _'Don't!'_

The Seventh, after going through the usual evening parade, and a few
simple man[oe]uvres, formed square, facing inward, with General Thomas
and the oil-skin sausage that contained the new colors, and all the
regimental officers, in the centre. General Thomas's feeble pipes
sounded faintly enough for about half an hour, during which time no man
in the ranks heard more than a dozen words. Then Colonel Lefferts
responded in a few inaudible, but no doubt very appropriate remarks.
Then 'the boys,' seeing that the time had come, cheered lustily, after
the hypothetical manner of the rocket. But there was one thing we did
hear, standing on tiptoe, and straining every ear. The Seventh was to go
somewhere. The crisis of the war had come. The Seventh was going to
shoot at it. Their thirty days were almost out; but they were going to
be shot at, just like any of us three-months men.

To leave their canned fruits, and milk, and fresh eggs, and board
floors, and a stroll on the avenue in the afternoon, and go where glory
waited for them! Happy, happy gray-breasts! We wandered enviously round
the excited camp, and talked with our friends. Many were the rumors,
appalling to us in those days, when we were yet unused to camp 'chin.'
The regiment was to go to Harper's Ferry. Johnston was there. They would
hang him if they took him. They were to march straight to Richmond, One
man of the 'Engineer Company' was going to resign, he said, because his
company had to remain to guard the camp. They were to take two days'
rations and forty rounds of cartridges per man--_ball_ cartridges. Forty
rounds of ball cartridges and two days' work! Surely, we thought, the
days of the rebellion are numbered. And then, chewing the bitter cud of
the reflection that the war would almost certainly be ended before we
got a chance at the enemy, we wandered sadly back to our quarters,
Smallweed growling horribly all the way. Our 'headquarters' we find in a
great state of excitement. We find the orderly and Major Heavysterne
discussing the prospects of the rebels being able to hold out a month,
and Color-Sergeant Hepp and the adjutant both trying to decide the
dispute. Hepp thinks they can't do without leather, and the adjutant
thinks the want of salt must fetch them in a few weeks. Thinks? Decides!
Whatever may be doubtful, this is certain. Everybody seems strangely
excited. We tell them our news. 'Tell us some'n do'n know!' rasps
Lieutenant Harch; 'our b'ttalion's goin', too; get ready, both of,
quick! Smallweed, where in the h-- have you been? I've had to do all
your work.' We were to go at nine o'clock at night. It was then eight.
Whither? No one knew. The chaplain comes in, with symptoms of erysipelas
in his nose, and a villanous breath, to tell us, while we--the
quartermaster-sergeant and I--are packing our knapsacks and leaving
lines of farewell for those at home and at other people's homes, that
the major has imparted to him in confidence the awful secret that we are
bound for Mount Vernon, to remove the bones of Washington. This gives us
something terrible to think of as we march down, in quick time (a
suggestion of that adjutant, I know), to the Long Bridge, and during the
long delay there, spent by commanding officers in pottering about and
gesticulating. By commanding officers? There is one there who does not
potter, standing erect--that one with the little point of fire between
his fingers that marks the never-quenched cigarette--talking to Major
Heavysterne in low and earnest tones, but perfectly cool and clear the
while. That is our splendid Colonel Diamond, as brave and good a soldier
as ever drew sword, as noble and true a Christian as ever endured
persecution and showed patience. They are discussing a plan for crossing
the river in boats, landing at a causeway where the Alexandria road
crosses Four Mile Run, and so cutting off the impudent picket of the
enemy's cavalry that holds post at the Virginia end of the Long Bridge.
The battalion commanders are evidently dazzled by the brilliancy of the
moonlight and the colonel's scheme, for it soon becomes apparent that
they haven't the pluck and dash necessary to render such an operation
successful. Even we young soldiers, intent upon the awful idea of
resurrecting Washington's bones, and little dreaming then of becoming
the pioneers of the great invasion, could see the hitch. Presently the
major got a definite order, and beckoning to us of the battalion staff,
began to cross the bridge. Dusky bodies of troops, their arms glistening
in the moon

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