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Papers from Overlook-House

by Frederic W. Beasley · English · Gutenberg #36980 · 316,455 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Papers from Overlook-House

Author: Frederic W. Beasley


        
Release date: August 5, 2011 [eBook #36980]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

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        Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images produced by the Wright
        American Fiction Project.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAPERS FROM OVERLOOK-HOUSE ***




Produced by Curtis Weyant, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images produced by the Wright
American Fiction Project.)











                              PAPERS FROM OVERLOOK-HOUSE.

                                   By Caspar Almore


    PHILADELPHIA
    J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
    1866.

    Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
    J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
    In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District
    of Pennsylvania.




CONTENTS.


    INTRODUCTORY LETTER                                               5

       CHAPTER I. ARRIVAL AT THE VILLAGE                             13

      CHAPTER II. THE WELCOME AT OVERLOOK-HOUSE                      18

     CHAPTER III. THE CHRISTMAS LOG IN THE KITCHEN                   33

      CHAPTER IV. HOW THE OVERLOOK PAPERS CAME TO BE WRITTEN         47

        I. DR. BENSON; OR THE LIVING MAN EMBALMED FOR TWENTY YEARS   51

       II. THE GHOST AT FORD INN--NESHAMONY                          75

      III. MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BIOGRAPHY;--OR, LITERATURE FOR A
           FAIR WIDOW                                                91

       IV. KATYDIDS:--A NEW CHAPTER IN NATURAL HISTORY              127

        V. THE IMAGE-MAKER                                          139

       VI. THE CLOUDS                                               142

      VII. THE PROTECTOR DYING                                      145

     VIII. THE INDIAN DREAM-CELL                                    149

       IX. WILD FLOWERS GATHERED FOR MY WIFE                        178

        X. RIVERSDALE                                               181

       XI. DR. SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE          198

      XII. MRS. DIGBY'S ECONOMY                                     224

     XIII. TO MY WIFE                                               236

      XIV. FADING AWAY                                              237




INTRODUCTORY LETTER.


OVERLOOK HOUSE, _October 10, 1864_.

MY DEAR FRIEND:--At last, as if borne to you by some scape-grace of a
messenger, these papers, copied from the time-discoloured manuscripts,
so carefully preserved in the old book-case, which with its dark lustre,
its bright brass ornaments, is still the prominent object in our
library, are destined to reach the hands into which they should long ago
have been placed.

I well remember the evening on which you first heard of them, and
listened to my attempt to read them to you; perplexed as I was with the
faded lines, traced by fingers which can write no more.

You will not forget our drives, previously, during the day, and late in
the afternoon, in consequence of my week-day service in the old church.
Perhaps the ancient edifice would need the excuse of days of
architectural ignorance, but no Cathedral on earth can surpass it, in
its claim to occupy a place amid scenes of surpassing beauty and
sublimity. There it stands alone, on the slope of an immense hill, with
the whole range of the mountains from the water-gap to the wind-gap full
in view--glorious walls to sustain the great blue dome of heaven! The
great solitude of the road that winds along the grave-yard, has often
caused me to think of distant friends, and has riveted them to my soul
with still more indissoluble bonds. And the Great Friend has been the
great relief from oppressive loneliness, as I thus stood in one of the
beautiful gates of the Eternal Temple. As to that quiet grave-yard
itself, the "rhetoric of the dead" is there well spoken, and they whose
ashes are here deposited, do not find "second graves" in our short
memories.

You will tell me that all connected with my church is not always solemn.
Your perverse memory will never forget the leader of the choir; nay, the
useful man who was often choir itself. He sang at least with energy.
Unfortunately--oh well do I remember my fearful victory over my
features, when I first became cognizant of the fact; a victory at a time
when a smile had endangered my claims to due ministerial sobriety;
unfortunately he had the habit of marking time emphatically, by raising
himself on his toes, and simultaneously elevating his hand, his chin,
his eyes, and his hair. Yet that was but a slight trial to us both. The
man was better than either of us; and the first impression having
subsided, we found that he did well in calling forth the voices of the
congregation. You will recollect our return home, as we refused all
offers of hospitality, although the snow was falling, and we were warned
not to risk the drifts, promised by the rising wind. We would not be
detained, as we had set our hearts on passing the evening together in
the old mansion of my fathers. On we drove, the sound of the bells
sweeping in wild merriment over the great fields of snow, or rising to a
louder chime as we passed through the forest, under a thousand triumphal
arches, of boughs laden with white honors. Only once, and where the road
was in a ravine, was I afraid that you would be exposed some hours to
the storm, until we should hear the voices of hunters, and the bay of
their dogs, sent to seek us, after our custom, when any one is lost in
the snow. Happily we extricated ourselves, and soon saw the lights
gleaming from the windows of the house upon the hill.

How pleasant the welcome of our good old Caesar, the man of dark hue, who
had no desire to be the first man in the village, nor the second man at
Rome; but was all eagerness to have a place, however lowly, in the
Eternal City! Another glad welcome in the hall; a net-work of questions
from little threads of voices, and the seats before the great wood-fire,
one of the few remaining representatives of the profuse customs of the
fathers; one witness that our forests are not yet all swept away. Did we
not give ample tributes to the repast prepared by Caesar's wife! Two
hungry men rescued from snow waves, we proved that one could feast on
Dinah's poetry of food, and yet, in the ensuing night, behold no
magnificent bandit, with a beard that would have done credit to a Roman
Centurion, and a dagger that honored the sense of sublime danger, by the
assurance that if it was to give us our death-blow, it was no coarse
weapon; the grand villain peering over you with an eye in which the evil
fires take refuge when conscience is in ashes. You know that in that
coming night, you did not even see the "fair ladie," now your wife,
borne away from you, in a mysterious coach, by some ruffians clad in
splendid mantles, while you were palsied, and could not move to seize
the sword, or gun, or could not call for aid. How pleasant was that
evening! From your weed rose the cloud that no counterblast, royal or
plebeian, has ever yet been able to sweep away from the lips of men.
Knitting by her little stand, sat one, whom to name is to tell, in a
word, the great history of my best earthly happiness. I am sure her
sweet thoughts, when spoken, were as the fragrance of flowers over our
homelier fields; while her gentle sympathy added to our strength, and
her instinctive and pure impressions, aided our conceptions, as gentle
guides, and taught us how wisdom was linked to minds swayed by goodness.
What a bond has she been of our long-enduring friendship! We talked of
the old times--of the ancient famed hospitality of the house. We spoke
of those who came there at Christmas--when the hymn of Milton seemed to
be read in a grand audience chamber--at the Spring when the world seemed
again so young--at Autumn where the mountains and hills were all a glow,
as if angels had kindled them with a fire, burning, but not consuming
them, turning them into great altars, by which man could stand, and
offer his adoration. Then we spoke of the papers that had been read
among the assembled guests. I told you their history; a history further
recorded in the fourth chapter; the last of the four chapters
preliminary. These were written by my grandfather. As your curiosity was
awakened, I drew forth some of these, from the old book-case in the
library, and read them as I could. You insisted that I should decipher
them, and let you send them to the press; send them to some one of your
honorable publishers, so that many eyes could read, what few eyes have
rested on, in this distant solitude. Julia seconded the proposition.
What had I to do, but to obey! Some years have passed, and you have
often complained of my procrastination. Shall I make excuses? Excuses
are the shadows which the irresolute and idle, the evil, keep ever near,
as their refuge from just accusation. The moment you feel the least loss
of self-respect in seeking them, the moment you have to search to find
them, take heed of them. Those formed to be giants, often live in them,
and then life is consequently the life of the dwarf. I knew that I could
have sent the papers long ago, had I written two or three lines each
day, since I gave my promise. Julia, who, woman-like, always convicts me
when I excuse myself, and consoles me, and defends me, when I am in the
ashes, and contrite with self-upbraiding, who is never severe with me,
but when I spoil the children by keeping them up too late at night,
says, that I never allow a literary effort to encroach on my great
duties; that I have had so much to do, that I could not sooner perform
my promise. She laughs, and says that the dates I annex to my papers,
during my progress in this work, show how I was interrupted, and that if
the histories of intermediate parochial work were given, the book would
be a strange record. Often the sick and suffering have caused long
intervals to elapse in these labors. When I could attempt the work, the
change in the current of my associations has been a relief. Julia has
wished me to write histories of the lives of some of those, who composed
various papers in the old case. Of course, some of the authors have been
passing utterly from the minds of a race, that cannot remember, but the
least remnant of those who have gone before. We lament the ravages of
time. Multitudes are forgotten on the earth, whom it would be a blessing
to have in perpetual remembrance. Alas! we have also to confess, that
time conceals the story of innumerable others, when it is well that it
should be buried in its deepest oblivion.

I hope that I have copied these papers with commendable accuracy. We
trust that they will add to the happiness of those who read them, and
prove at the same time to be profitable. May they increase kind
impressions! May they sow seeds that shall have the sun and dew that
never falls on growth that is evil! Man has tablets in the heart, for
inscriptions greater, and more enduring, than those of the great ledges
of rock in the far East.

As one would hesitate to write the outlines of his coming destiny, if
such a pen of Providence could be ready for his hand, so he, who has any
love for others, would pause before he would carve, even in faintest
letters, one word on these, which could sully the surface, where the
indestructibility warns us, that all is an eternal record with Him,
whose eye is too pure to look upon iniquity. I need not attempt, like
authors of a former age, to solicit a favorable criticism, from the
"gentle reader." If I say, here, that the hall has rung with peals of
laughter, as some of the papers of the old book-case have been read,
that some have shed tears over the Ghost of Ford Inn, and said, it is
too sad, these assurances will not predispose one who shall open the
proposed volume, to utter a favorable opinion. These waifs must be cast
on the waters, like all other similar ventures. We must wait, and learn
where Providence shall waft them.

Will these papers outlive this decaying house? Will men love us because
we have sent them forth? Will we, because of them, be grasped with a
kindlier hand? Will they soften hearts in this trying world, and aid men
to a greater charity?

But I must pause. Lamps will grow dim. Warnings will come, that letters
may attain to too great prolixity. Readers are often not sufficiently
sagacious, to know that when Homer nods, he has a design. Can I apply,
what old Dr. South, the great and witty preacher said, when he printed
the sermon at the Royal mandate, that the Majesty of the Realm must
excuse the length of the discourse, inasmuch as he had not had time to
make it shorter? Or, shall I remember the severe speech, doubtless a
dutiful necessity, a knife to remove such a miserable vanity as often
makes men worse than useless; the severe speech of an Eastern Divine,
who, when the young preacher waited all day in vain for a compliment, to
his morning's discourse, and said, in desperation, as the evening waned
in the study, "Doctor, I hope that I did not weary your people with the
length of my discourse," had for reply the quiet answer, "No, sir; nor
by the depth of it."

So, as you have the infirmity of going to sleep over the most
interesting discourse, as the lamp is going out, as I am nervous,
sitting up at such a late hour, as the paper is all written over, and I
have none other near at hand, I release you. Go to sleep, but wake the
world to-morrow, and then say that I am your friend.

A friend of many years,

CASPAR ALMORE.




OVERLOOK.


CHAPTER I.

_ARRIVAL AT THE VILLAGE._


I stepped from the stage-sleigh, in the village of Overlook, at the
post-office: for there the driver stopped to leave his mail-bag. That
important article, which, as a boy, I used to regard with undefined
dread, for I associated it with a poor wretch, who was hung for laying
villanous hands upon one, in a desolate road, was the old-fashioned
leather sack, full of iron rivets.

Perhaps at the time when this writing may reach the press, such a
contrivance may have become antiquated; and therefore I had better add
to my description, that a weighty chain passed through iron rings, to
secure the opening; and finally, there was the brass padlock, at which
the Indian gazed with such contempt, when he said, "Brass lock upon
leather! that makes my knife laugh." I stepped from the heavy
stage-sleigh into the one sent for me by Judge Almore, and it was like
passing from a heavy craft on the waters, into one of lesser make, and
lighter burden. John Frake, the farmer at Overlook Manor, had driven
over for me. His horses seemed exhilarated by the bells, and we dashed
forward in splendid style. John Frake was a character; a real man in
energy, work, and talk; frank, and good-hearted.

As we drove along, in a loud voice, that permitted not a word to be lost
by the melody of the bells, he made his comments upon all things, and
especially on the inhabitants along the streets of the village.

"Dr. Norkin lives there," he said, pointing with his whip to a
comfortable house. And then as if pondering the beginning of a long
train of thought, he added,

"Those Yankees are unaccountable smart people."

"The doctor is a Yankee, then?"

"Oh no! there aint enough Yankee in him to make a spot on the map of
Massachusetts. Not but that the doctor has lots of common sense, and
keeps all that he has got ready for use, when wanted, as ready as my
plough to go through the ground. But those Yankees have the most
uncommon ways of putting things together; just as if you took something
out of the middle of the earth, and made it fit something on the top of
a mountain."

"Yes, but I don't see what Yankees have to do with the doctor."

"I'll tell you what I was thinking about. I was once at the mountains,
forty miles off, where there is a mineral spring. There is where ladies
and gentlemen go to drink water, eat all manner of things at the tavern,
and get well, when they never have been sick. Iron in the water at the
springs! Bless you; it would not divide the nails in a horse-shoe in a
month, to the whole army of the Revolution, if they had drunk of nothing
else. Well our judge and the family followed the fashion. Fashion is a
runaway horse that carries a great load of straw behind him, and
sometimes he has after him things much better than straw. I drove up to
bring them home. But the judge was taken sick just before I got there,
and sent for our doctor here, to come up and cure him. In the night,
after I got there, one of your uncommon Yankees, who seemed to be well
off, and to do fifty things, from what I could gather, to make money,
had a bad attack; unlike anything I ever heard of around here. He was
awful bad. I heard the racket, and went into his room.

"'My friend,' says I, 'you do look awful bad'--for I always speak my
honest sentiments, in a sick-room, or out of it. 'I thank you for your
sympathy,' says he--and yet somehow it sounded as if he didn't. I
presumed he didn't want any one to talk to him. 'Send down for Dr.
Norkin,' says the landlord. 'He is here;' this is what he said to the
sick man. 'He lives forty miles off--at Overlook. But he is here,
attending on Judge Almore--who has been ill.'

"The sick man, after a groan or two, raised himself up in his bed. It
was as good as the best apple, to see how quickly he seemed to ungear
his mind from his sick body. He gave a long thought. Then he said,

"'Did the judge send for that doctor, because he was in the house at the
time when he was taken sick? Or did he send all the way to Overlook for
him to come here to him?'

"'He sent for him to Overlook,' says the landlord, before I could put in
a word.

"'Then I'll see him,' says he--speaking quickly out, and firm like, as
if he was a king. Now wasn't that cute? I tell you such men think
faster, and a great way before other people. Well; it's a free country,
and all people aint bound to do their thinking alike."

We now came to the entrance of the lane, that led up to Overlook House.

Two large cherry trees stood on either side of the gate. I drew the
attention of my companion to them. They were very venerable, and their
winter boughs showed some signs of decay.

"Them big trees,"--said he. "Either of them, I'll engage is as old as
three average men. They say a man averages thirty years of life. Now
they are full ninety years old, and big at that."

"You have lived long with the judge?"

"Bless your heart, sir, long indeed. But he's a good man. There's few
that don't say so--well, thank God, it is those kind of people that
don't. When he speaks and acts, you feel that our Lord has taught him
his religion--just as we know it is Sunday, when we wake and hear the
church-bells ringing, and all the sun-light seems full of the sweet
sound, and all the sound as if it had gone through the bright sun. I do
love Sunday."

Here we were close to the house. "Come and see me," he said, "down at my
house there. It is not as big as the judge's, but then there is room in
it for a hearty welcome. I will give you a glass of good cider, or two,
or three, for that matter. As for wine, I never keep any. It seems to me
to be poor stuff, as if it was trying to be brandy, and couldn't." The
mission of the sleigh was now over. I and my trunks were at the porch of
the house. So the worthy farmer and I parted for the present.




CHAPTER II.

_THE WELCOME AT OVERLOOK-HOUSE._


A colored servant man, of most respectable appearance, and of quiet
manners, evidently glad of my arrival ushered me into the house, saying
that Judge Almore would be home in a short time, as he had gone but a
little distance on the farm; and that his good lady would come down
stairs in a few minutes. The hall of the house was large, and decorated
with Indian relics; with long deer-horns, also, and other trophies of
the hunting ground. I was hastened into an adjoining room, which I had
scarcely entered, before I felt the invigorating heat from the great
fire-place. There the hickory logs seemed doing their best, with their
immense flame, to make me feel as if I was cared for, a stranger from a
distance. On the hearth there was a small mountain of glowing coals. How
pleasant it is to sit before such a fire, and to think that our
interminable forests, will supply abundant fuel, for the inhabitants of
our cities for hundreds of years to come. Even when New York, and
Philadelphia, Trenton, and Boston, may, two or three centuries hence,
have each two or three hundred thousand inhabitants, and that
expectation of their increase in population, is not so chimerical as it
seems, and when the country round them, may be so cleared and
cultivated, that in a circle of fifteen or twenty miles in diameter, the
farm-houses may generally be in sight of one another, it is probable
that the decrease of our woods will scarcely be perceptible.

But as I gazed into the flames which soon removed all chilliness from my
frame, I had no time for lengthened speculations on the future of our
land; for Mrs. Almore entered the room, and greeting me with great
cordiality, assured me of my welcome. As I was engaged in conversation
with this most estimable lady, I found myself called on to regret her
visitation with a great affliction. Her cheerful countenance and manner,
however, proved that she had not permitted it to hang over her as a
cloud, to darken her days, or to make her selfish in her expectation of
attention. The affliction was a great deafness, one evidently of long
duration, and incurable; so I judged from the evidence of her loud
tones, almost shouting when she addressed me. I flatter myself that I
can cause any one to hear me speak, who has the ability to know, that a
pistol is discharged not far from his ear. And I always feel great
commiseration for those who hear with difficulty. Meeting with such, I
regard the power of my lungs, as a gift, particularly designed for their
service and enjoyment. Indeed I undesignedly secured a legacy from an
aged aunt, by the assiduity I exhibited in informing her of what was
said around her, when others neglected her, as she thought, because it
was so difficult to make her to hear. Trained as I had been in the past,
I have to confess, that my powers of loud speech, were never more taxed
than on the present occasion. The loud tones in which we commenced our
conversation, were gradually increased; I perceived that as she raised
the pitch of her voice, it was a delicate intimation to me, that I must
speak with increased effort, if I would secure a perfect hearing. As we
were engaged in this polite rivalship, each being, not only a diligent
hearer, but a good speaker, a most comfortable-looking African woman, of
very dark hue, entered to receive the orders of her mistress. She
desired to know, as it soon appeared, some particulars concerning the
approaching meal; and also to receive some orders which pertained to the
room I was to occupy. The good mistress then stepped aside and drew near
to the swarthy domestic. To my surprise, the lady dropped her voice to a
good undertone, and gave her directions, as it were, "aside." She is one
of those deaf persons, I said to myself, who can understand what others,
with whom they are familiar, have to say when they see the motion of
their lips. I once met with a man who had this singular gift. He
possessed it to such an extent, that strangers, who conversed with him,
never knew that he did not hear a word which they spoke. Yet what could
I do now! I was compelled to hear what was said. How strange it was,
that the good lady overlooked the fact, that I must hear all that could
be heard by Dinah. And this Dinah was now informed what set of china
should be placed on the table for my special benefit. From what she
hinted, I inferred, that there was some special honor in this
arrangement; as it proved to her that the Holemans, who took tea with
them the night before, having made use of a decidedly inferior service,
were some grades less respectable than myself--though the mistress, when
the insinuation was made, peremptorily declared, that the aforesaid
Holemans were very worthy people, and should always be treated with
great respect, as valued friends, in her house. An occasion was also
taken, on the mention of the white and gold china, to administer a
cutting reproof to Mrs. Dinah, for a nick in the spout of the
tea-pot,--which circumstantial evidence, clearly and hastily summed up,
proved to be the result of carelessness in the kitchen. To this attack,
Dinah, as I must honestly testify, made persistent defense, and gave
some most curious rebutting testimony. And I am also under obligation to
state, that even when most excited by the charge, she never even made
the most distant allusion, to the possibility that the cat had anything
to do with this domestic calamity. Such was the honor of the kitchen in
the good old times. I also learned, incidentally, some curious
information concerning the comparative ages of some chickens, which had
lately been cooped up and fattened.

I gleaned besides, some antiquarian lore concerning a venerated
"comfortable," that was intended for my bed,--and a hint that some
portion of its variegated lining had been the valued dress of a
grandmother, worn by her on some memorable occasion,--a proud record in
the family history. Some very particular directions were also given for
my comfort, so that my ideas on the art of house-keeping, were greatly
expanded; and I was ready to look on each lady, who ruleth over a house,
as a minute philosopher.

Dinah was also informed, that she was forbidden to act on a speculative
principle, which she advanced, with great assurance; namely, that
bachelors did not see, or know anything; that it was only married men
who did; being set up to it by their wives, who made a mighty fuss in
another house, when all the time they knew things wasn't as tidy at
home. She was told not to act on any such miserable sophistry--that
things were to be done right, and kept right--no matter whether any one
noticed them, or not. In the course of conversation, my having come from
New York was the subject of an allusion; whereupon the dark woman
slipped in the observation, that she did wish she could get to that
place, for she "was afraid that she should die, and have nothing to
tell."

After all this important business was transacted, there was a hasty, and
sudden digression for a moment, in the shape of a kind inquiry into the
present state of the health of the hopeful heir of the said Dinah, who
was spending the chief portion of his days in a cradle. I was, I must
confess it, very much astonished to learn, from the reply and
descriptions of the mother, that there is such a wonderful sympathy,
between the teeth which are trying to make their way into the world, and
the mechanism of a juvenile which is concealed from human sight in his
body. It seemed to me a marvellous proof of the manner in which such
little creatures maintain their hold on life, that he could possibly
have endured such astonishing internal pains; and, also, that all the
world ought to know the sovereign virtues of an elixir, which was
compounded at Overlook House. Its virtues, unlike the novel devices that
are palmed on the public with such pretentious certificates, have been
tested by the infants of several generations.

All cabinet meetings must have an end. So Dinah disappeared, after a
furtive glance at my person; drawing her conclusions, I am assured,
whether I would be a suitable husband for Miss Meta.

Soon after the hall door opened, and this young lady entered. Her mother
introduced me to her in the same high pitch of voice, in which she
conducted her conversation with strangers.

She said a few kind and pleasant words to me; and with a voice raised to
an imitation of the maternal precedent, though without the loss of its
indescribable sweetness. She was evidently anxious, that her mother
should feel, that she was to be a party in our brief conversation.

As I looked at her, I thought that a sweeter, more etherial form, a face
more radiant with affections pure as the air over the snow, an eye to
rest on you, as if it said, that every one on whom it fell was a new
object for sympathy, had never met my view, and I thought then, and
think now the more confidently, that I have made a good use of my eyes
during my pilgrimage in the world. After the interchange of the few
words to which I have alluded, she was about leaving us; but before she
reached the door, her mother called to her, and arrested her steps. The
good lady addressed her, in the same low tones in which she had formerly
conversed with Dinah.

As I looked at her again, I felt that I repressed the exhibition of
signs of unrestrained admiration. She seemed, indeed, as if she had
grown up in the midst of the beauty of the natural world, and had been
moulded to a conformity with all that we witness of grace in the field,
or in the forest. The mother spoke in a manner half playful, half
serious. "So Miss Meta this is the old way. You expected the arrival of
this young gentleman, quiet, good-looking, evidently a person of good
sense, and your father says, of most estimable character. And there you
have on your old shawl, your old bonnet, and your hair blown about in
the wind as if it had never had a brush applied to it. You are so
careless about your appearance! You know that I have often spoken to you
on the subject. And yet, on the most important occasions, you neglect
all my advice. You will be laid upon the shelf yet. You will die an old
maid. But do not blame me. Do go, and brush your hair, and put on
another frock, and make yourself presentable. And after that, go and see
that Dinah arranges everything right. I will give you credit for order,
and expertness as a house-keeper. Old maids, however, are often very
good house-keepers. So go, and do as I tell you. I don't mean to say
that you are a dowdy, but I want to see you more particular."

"My revered mother," said Meta, with a most grave inclination of the
head, and with a slight pomp of declamation, "your will is law. My
dress, for the next two or three weeks, shall be a grand deceit, as if
it was my habit to be as particular as the young Quakeress, who once
visited us, and who was as exact in arranging her robes, as the snow is,
in taking care, that there shall be grace in its unblemished drifts. I
intend, in fact, to be irresistible. Henceforth let all young men,
quiet, respectable, who have not cross eyes, and who fascinate a mother,
and give occasion to all her sanguine hopes of matrimonial felicity for
a daughter, beware of Meta. They are as sure of being captives, as the
poor little rabbits I so pity, when once they unwisely venture, to
nibble at the bait in one of Peter's celebrated traps. So, best of
mothers, forgive the past. Wisest of counsellors, for a brief space,
farewell."

After the retreat of the daughter silence endured for a little while,
while I walked to the window, and enjoyed the extensive and beautiful
view. The residence of the Judge was on a hill, overlooking a
picturesque village, and hence the name of the mansion which in time
dispelled a very ugly name, from the small town, and gave its own
designation to the place--the name of such a collection of dwellings
generally becoming permanent when the post-office is established in its
limits. After this I was engaged in the survey of some fine old plates
upon the wall, and the picture of a portly old gentleman, whose dress
indicated that he had lived in the olden time. I was seeking to find
some clue to his character and history in his face, when Mrs. Almore
rose, and crossed the room and joined me.

It was evident that the picture was too important for me to look upon it
and not know what was due of admiration for him, of whom this uncertain
resemblance was all that remained on earth,--the frail shadow of a
shadow. I saw at once that she had a formidable history to relate, and
that she had often told it to those who gazed on the form on the wall. I
suspected that some family pride was gratified by the narrative; and
prepared myself for some harmless amusement, as I was to watch and
observe how the vanity would expose itself. But she had not got beyond
some dry statistics, the name, the age, the offices held in the State in
the good olden time, when such honors were always a pledge of merit in
the possessors, before the Judge entered the room, without our observing
it. He drew near, heard for a moment, with the greatest astonishment,
the loud tones of the lady, who now addressed me.

He extended his hand to me, with very kind, but dignified, courtesy,
and, after giving the assurance that I was most truly welcome on my own
account, and for the sake of my father, who had been a fellow-student
with him at Princeton College, and almost a life-long friend, he turned
to the lady by us, his honored wife, and exclaimed,--

"My dear, I heard your elevated voice outside of the house, and in the
extreme end of the hall. You really alarmed me. At first I could not
imagine what had occurred in the room. Why do you speak in such tones of
thunder to my young friend? Is this a new style of hospitality for
Overlook-House?"

"You told me that our guest, Mr. Martin, was deaf." So spoke the good
hostess, with a look of frightened inquiry, a perturbed glance at
myself,--with a countenance that expressed a desire for relief,--while
her tone was expressive of a great misgiving.

"I beg your pardon," said the Judge; "you are under an entire mistake. I
told you that he wrote to me, some time ago, that he had met with an
accident and become very lame. But when I told you this I remember that
you were very much abstracted. I presume that you were deeply absorbed
in some new order for your household, or in the state of Dinah's noisy
heir. I never heard that Mr. Martin was deaf for a moment in his life. I
told you that he was lame."

"Are you sure--are you sure that he is not deaf?"

"I am sure that he hears as well as either of us. And,--at least as far
as you are concerned, that is to say that he could not have a better
sense of hearing. He might possibly, it is true, be abstracted, when
any one spoke to him, and imagine that he said 'deaf,' when in reality
the speaker said 'lame.'"

"Dear me! my future peace is destroyed. It is worse than if a ghost
intended perpetually to haunt me--for the ghost would come only in the
dark; but this disaster will torture me day and night. I have buried
myself under a mass of ruins from which I cannot extricate myself." And
the lady looked as if an anaconda was threatening to creep in among us.

"I am sure that Mr. Martin will forgive you. He has only been annoyed by
a loud conversation for a short time. It will be a pleasing variety to
hear you address him in a gentle voice. Since he had such evidence of
the pains you have taken to entertain him when you thought him deaf, he
is assured that you will not change your desire to make him feel at home
and to know that he is among friends, now that you hear so well."

"Judge, you have no sympathy. You should have taken care that I did not
fall into such a terrible mistake. I often notice that you speak to me,
and turn and go away, as if you never watched to observe whether I
understood you or no. I have often felt it, Judge, often felt
it,--although I kept my feelings on the subject to myself. And now you
see the consequences. You see where you have landed me. And I am the one
to suffer all the evil that results from such indifference. What shall
I do? Here is Meta. Meta, what shall I do? Mr. Martin is not at all
deaf. Somehow, your father did not impress what he said on my mind. I am
sure that this is not the first time that I have misunderstood him, and
I never have any desire to fall into error. People that are so accurate
and so careful as he is, not to be guilty of any mistake in their
professional duties, so accurate as they say he is when on the bench,
are often careless of smaller matters at home. Meta, Mr. Martin can
hear. My dear, he can hear as well as you or I."

"Let me, my dear mother, enter into your Christian joy, now that your
sorrow over his supposed affliction is relieved. You know that it is an
unmingled pleasure to you to learn that he is not afflicted with so
great a calamity as you supposed."

"Very well, Meta."

"And then, mother, as far as I am involved in the consequences of your
mistake, he knows that I appear in my present fascinations; see my
smooth hair, and this frock almost new, not in my own will, or in
accordance with my usual habits, but solely from a sense of filial duty.
I am so charming, because of my reverential regard for the injunctions
of my mother."

"Meta, can you never be still?"

"And then, mother, if there be a little art in my dress, if snares lurk
around me to secure those who come near me, this does not proceed, in
the least possible degree, from any guile in me. It is the mere
expression of the anxiety of a mother that her daughter should not
attain the condition of some of the best people on the earth. I allude
to a class of my sex who are ignorantly, I will not say uncharitably,
supposed to make the world uncomfortable through their inflexible
devotion to minor morals."

"Meta, unless you are silent I shall have to leave the room."

"Well, mother, then I am mute. How fortunate it was that I was the only
person with whom you conversed in the hearing of Mr. Martin!"

"Meta, you drive me mad. I did have another conversation, which he
heard."

"Oh, do tell us! What happened? It could not have been as interesting to
him as the one which you held with me. I shall not use my brush for some
time without thinking about it. Do tell us. As Nancy often says, I am
dying to hear all about it."

"Oh," said I, "Miss. Meta, all that your mother said was of no
importance. She cannot care, when she reflects upon it, whether I heard
it or no."

"But, Mr. Martin, then tell us what she said. It put my father and
myself under a lasting obligation."

"Mr. Martin can be more considerate than you are."

"Yes, madam, because he has heard all. I will be as considerate as you
please, if I can only acquire the same information. Well, walls have
ears. And if ever walls heard anything, I am sure ours have heard
to-day. They will speak in due time. Father, who has been in the room
with mother since Mr. Martin arrived? I must ask Ben."

"Meta, I take my departure. If nothing is heard of me to-day or
to-morrow, search the mill-pond. Oh, what a difference there is between
being lame, or deaf! I cannot forgive your father. Really, he ought to
be more cautious. I cannot forgive him."




CHAPTER III.

_THE CHRISTMAS LOG IN THE KITCHEN._


The day after my arrival, Miss Meta and I were returning home, after we
had driven several miles over the country in a sleigh. Our nearest
conception of the ecstasy of those who shall hereafter have wings, with
which they can fly over earth and sea, on a bright morning, racing with
the larks, or some ambitious hawk, or, on some most fortunate hour, even
with the eagle, is attained when we glide thus over the snow. But far
above all the other pleasure of the time, was the sweet companionship of
her whose laugh was merrier than the bells, which Caesar had hung around
the horses with a profuse generosity. I have wondered at the mysterious
manner in which some of the loveliest beings with which God enriches
this earth are developed before our view, on occasions when we might
expect that we should obtain the least insight into their character.

How is it that the ineffable purity of a woman, her depth of affection,
her capacity for sympathy, which even in its lesser degrees renders her
such a blessing in a world of so much trial, can, in some instances of
great perfection, appear with such evidence in a few words, in an act
which requires but little self-denial, in a tone of sorrow for small
suffering, or of joy for some one who is happy! There are some men in
whom you place perfect confidence as soon as you once behold the eye
kindled with an earnest expression, and hear their voice. After all the
disappointments one endures in life from misplaced trust one may freely
confess that if we have spent many years on the earth, and at last say
in our hearts there are none in whose professions we can repose, the
fault is in ourselves. We judge ourselves to be true men, and we cannot
be a miracle, standing alone as such, amid all the rest of the human
family. But if we can assuredly pronounce of some men that they are
worthy of our utmost confidence as soon as we become acquainted with
them, much more can we confide in our impressions, thus quickly formed,
of some of the gentler portion of our race. How many years have passed
since I formed my first impressions of Meta! and how true they were!
Quickly, inaudible prophecies, in their silence arresting your mind and
eliciting homage, were made known in her presence, and gave promise of
endless charities to adorn her daily life. There was an imperious
necessity in her noble nature, elevated as no power of earth could
accomplish, to perform with strict exactness even the least duties, as
one who heard him say that the least of his commandments can by its
observance aid us to the attainment of the true life.

An enthusiast might have said that her very laugh was too pure for
earth. All pure influences, too good for us, are needed by our
necessities. It is well for earth that we have not only those among us
who, though not criminal in human estimate, are of the earth earthy, and
of whom the world is worthy. Her joy always proclaimed the freedom given
the blest here below, and that it never could subvert the deep gravity
of her nature--as the bark that moves so gaily in the sun and wind, by a
sudden check reminds us that it cannot drift into danger, but is secure;
for the hidden anchor holds in its just bounds.

We had crossed a stream upon the ice, and were now ascending the hill
from whose summit we could see Overlook-House in the distance. The great
forest was on either side of the way. Suddenly we espied three men
holding a consultation over an immense log. It had just been severed
from a huge tree, which the saw and axe had laid low, the great branches
sweeping the snow as they came crushing down into heaps, and here and
there revealing the dead leaves and the wintry grass.

Near them stood--models of patience--four oxen, looking as if the cold
air could never discompose them, and attached to a sled whose strong
runners seemed to defy any weight that could be heaped upon them. I
recognized the men as servants belonging on the estate of the Judge.
They were negroes, slaves,--slaves in name, awaiting a near year of
emancipation fixed by the law of the State. They were perfectly aware
that they could have their freedom at any time from their
master,--freedom in name; for they now possessed it in reality.

Nothing could be more comfortable than their general appearance. Their
dress was warm, and such as any laboring man could desire. At the
present moment their happiness seemed perfect. They surrounded the log
with an exhibition of exuberant animal spirits, with transport in such
excess that it never could have been crowded into the frame of a white
man.

As we drew near, one was demanding attention, in a most triumphant
manner, to sundry vast knots which protruded from the log. Then the trio
made the wood ring with shouts of merriment, and threw themselves into
inimitable contortions.

"What causes all this excitement?" I asked. "Why should that log cause
all the effect which the greatest wit could hope to produce?" "They are
preparing," was the answer, "a back-log for the kitchen chimney. It is
to be put in the fire-place this evening, the night before Christmas,
after all the fire has burnt down required for an evening meal. As long
as any portion of it lasts, they have holiday. In winter they have so
little to do, that it would puzzle them to say what change the holiday
makes in their labor. Their imagination acts on a traditionary custom.
Hence they take it for granted that they have an easier time than in the
month before or after. They go into the wood and select the largest tree
and the one which can afford the log most likely to last. Before they
retire to rest, they take great care to arrange the brands and coals so
that it shall not burn during the night. They often throw water upon it
when it seems to burn too rapidly. And as to their wisdom, I think that
on the present occasion they have made an admirable choice."

We now drew near, and spoke to the Africans. They eagerly called the
attention of their young mistress to the wonderful qualities of the
severed trunk. Assertions were made concerning fabulous quantities of
buckwheat-cakes, that would be eaten before that vast cylinder would be
reduced to ashes. There was not the slightest idea that any member of
the family of the Judge would feel the least interest different from
their own. In fact they felt that all joined them in their conspiracy
against--they knew not what,--a conspiracy for some great imaginable
benefit unknown.

"You had better hasten," I said, observing their oblivion as to the work
before them; "for the sun is sinking, and the night will soon be upon
us. There is no moon to-night."

"Master," said one, "what is the reason why the moon always shines on
bright nights, when we do not want him, and not on dark nights, when we
can't see where we go?"

Happily, before I could summon my philosophical knowledge for practical
use, and deliver then and there, from my oracular sleigh, a lecture
which would do honor to my Alma Mater, while I, in a lucid manner,
removed the perplexity of my inquirer, he was called away to make
diligent use of one of the great levers provided for the occasion. The
rolling of the log on the sled was hard work,--so hard that I gave Meta
the reins, and volunteered my assistance. I did well as to the physical
application of power. Yet I found these men, in this instance, possessed
of more practical natural philosophy than myself. The toil was seasoned
with much wit,--that is to say, wit if the laughter was to be the test.
And there is no epicure who can exceed the African in enjoyment when he
is feasting on his own witticisms.

Meta told me that I must by all means be a witness to the process of
rolling the log on the kitchen hearth. So we led the way home, our fleet
horses leaving the oxen, with their vast and important load, far behind
us. On our arrival home, we found the wife of the doctor, with the Judge
and his good lady. She was a pleasant person, and added to the
conversation of the evening the remarks of an acute and cultivated mind.
She had one protruding weakness. It was her pride in her family, which
was a very respectable one in the part of the country from which she
came. She had been educated in the idea, that they were the greatest
people in the world,--a wide-spread delusion in the land. This led her
to assure me, at least a dozen times in the evening that her family were
very "peculiar." "This tea very fine! Yes, it is remarkably good. I am
sure that it cannot be excelled. And I must say to you, that my family
are very peculiar. They are very peculiar in their fondness for
excellent tea."

"The Judge's family not exclusive! No; certainly they are very much
beloved, and, mingling with others, have done great good to our
community. But I must say that my family are, perhaps, too exclusive.
They are peculiar, very peculiar. They do not like to associate with
uncongenial persons."

"What a grand Christmas fire! Well I suppose I inherit the love of such
a blaze. How cheerful it is! Well my family are peculiar, very peculiar;
they always like to have a cheerful, a good warm fire. They are
peculiar." So "peculiar" I soon discovered meant that they were very
remarkable, very distinguished people. It was to be supposed that all
that they did, indicated that they were made of clay finer than all the
rest used in the formation of other people. Common things touched by
their hands became gilded and refined. Wherever they were, there was a
pyramid above the common elevation, and on its summit was their
appropriate place. Was the doctor on that platform? Or was he only
holding to it by his elbows and yet with his feet far above the earth on
which common men had their place where they could stand?

With the exception of this folly the lady was, as I have said, an
acquisition to our evening party. She was evidently one who had a kind
heart, and devotedly attached to her Lord and Master. In after days I
found her to be one of my most valued friends and advisers. As respects
their ability to become such true friends, an ability which truly
ennobles man, I have no doubt that her family were peculiar, very
peculiar indeed.

The evening was quickly passing away when we were summoned, according to
the order which Meta had given, to the wing of the house where was the
kitchen, that we might see the great log rolled into the fire-place. The
kitchen was a very large room, such as were built of old by prosperous
settlers in our land, when they had acquired enough of this world's
goods, to make such additions to the log cabin in which they began their
farming life, as they in their full ambition of space could desire.

How often are the dwelling-houses in our country a curious history of
the gradual increase of a family in prosperity!

The kitchen of the Judge was evidently designed by a frontier architect,
as a great hall of refuge for a large family. The windows were planned
when there need not be loop-holes where Indians prowled around, and
might need the admonition of a rifle-ball to teach them to keep at a
respectful distance. The glasses in them were small, and the pieces of
wood in which they were inserted would have been strong enough for the
rounds of a ladder. There was room for all things. One could churn,
another spin, another mend a net; children could find appropriate nooks
where they could con the spelling-book and study the multiplication
table in times when the rod was not spared; neighbors making a friendly
call could find a vacant space where they could sit and partake of cider
and homely cakes, and if they had any special business, which a citizen
would settle in two minutes, could spend an hour in preliminaries of a
very vague kind, in generalities not glittering, and coming to the
subject, only when they were farthest from it, and all could be
transacted without any one being in the least degree incommoded.

One of the prominent objects in the kitchen at Overlook-House was the
rafters above you. The ceiling was resting upon them, in the form of
thick boards, which were the floor of the rooms above. From these guns
were suspended on wooden forks, just as they were cut from the tree and
stripped of their bark. Fishing rods were hung there in the same manner.
In some places parcels of dried herbs were tied to large nails driven
into the timbers. Here and there a board was nailed to the rafters,
forming a shelf. On one side of the room was a great bench with a board
back much higher than the head of any person who could sit upon
it,--which back by an ingenious device could be let down and make a
table,--the rude sofa beneath answering for solid legs.

Near this useful combination was a box on rockers--as a cradle. There
lay the heir of Dinah. Its little dark head on the white pillow was like
a large blackberry, could it have existed out of its season and fallen
on the pure snow. Dinah, who was near it, was a character. Her sayings
were memorable. One day she was speaking of a bad man who had found his
way for a brief season to Overlook, and said in a state of great
indignation, for he had cheated the people by some act of bare-faced
villany, "Master, if the devil doesn't get that man I want any of the
folks to tell me what is the use of having a devil?"

But the most singular portion of the room was the great fire-place and
the arrangements connected with it. It was a structure perfectly
enormous, and the stones required for its erection must have made a
large opening in the quarry. It was deep and high. An ox could easily
have been roasted whole before it. Over it was a shelf which no one in
these degenerate days could reach. On either side were two small
closets,--made in the deep wall,--the door of each being made from a
wide plank, and secured by a large wooden button. In the back of the
fire-place, on one side of it, was the door of a great oven,--rivalling
in size, I presume, the tomb of the ancient grandee in the east--where
the traveler slept, perhaps on some of the very dust of the proud man
who gloried in the expectation of a kingly sepulchre. On either side of
the room on a line with the vast fire-place were two doors opening into
the air, and exactly opposite to each other. The broad hearth extended
from door to door, being flagged with large smooth stones. Each door was
framed of heavy oaken timber,--the boards in consequence of the depths
of the frame being sunk as deep panels. Each had a heavy wooden latch,
and a vast curved piece of wood was the handle by which it was to be
opened.

On the great pavement in front of the fire-place stood Caesar, a man
with a frame finely developed. His twin brother Pompey dwelt on an
adjoining farm,--so resembling him as one of the colored people said
that you could "scarcely tell them apart, they were so like one another,
especially Pomp." He had a rough coat thrown over him,--a fur-cap on his
head, and he held in one hand an iron chain that trailed on the stone
hearth and in the other a lantern emitting a blaze of light.

When we were all in our places Caesar directed one of the boys to open
the door on the right hand. There on the snow revealed by the light of
his lantern, was the famous log on a line parallel with the stone paving
that crossed the end of the room. Around this log, he with the help of
the boy fastened the iron chain, securing it with a spike partially
driven into the wood with a heavy hammer. The door on the left was then
thrown open, and we saw by the lights borne by several of the laborers,
that the oxen which had drawn the great segment of the trunk from the
forest were standing there upon the snow waiting to complete their labor
for the evening. The long chain extending across the whole width of the
room was drawn through the door and fastened to the yokes of the oxen.

Then came the chief excitement of the time. A quantity of snow was
thrown down at the entrance where the log lay in ponderous quiet, and
beaten down with spades and the heavy boots of the men. All were now
directed to stand some distance from the chain for fear of any accident.
Then Caesar gave the order. There was a sudden movement without. The
words of command which oxen are supposed to know, were spoken to put
them in motion. There was a loud snapping of whips. The chain was heaved
in the air and rose and fell. The huge log was drawn forward. It passed
the door and glided along on the stone pavement, like a great ship
moving through the water after its sails have suddenly been lowered, and
it proceeds by its acquired impulse. When it had reached the front of
the vast aperture where it was to be slowly consumed, Caesar gave his
prompt order. It was immediately obeyed, and the oxen were brought to a
pause in their exertions. It was evident from the absence of explanation
to those without, and from the perfect composure of the master of the
ceremony, that similar scenes were of frequent occurrence.

The chain being removed and the oxen led away, the log was rolled by the
application of the levers to its place. There it lay, the crushed snow
melting and falling on the hot hearth, the singing sound of the steam
rising from the stones.

So there was the measure of the fancied increase of freedom from labor
during the Christmas season. Nothing now remained but the gathering of
all the household to the evening devotions. The Judge read the
Scriptures, and after the singing of a hymn offered up the prayers.
There was an indescribable reality in the attention, and a fervor in the
kneeling church in the house. It led you to reflect how One who came
down from above and took our nature upon him has taught man how to make
his life on earth the dawn of an eternal day. I had felt the presence of
God in the shades of the great mountain forest during past hours. But
here in the stillness of this evening worship, as the light of the
Redeemer revealed the grandeur of all that is immortal in men, of all
that stands ever so near the portal of endless glory, as all earthly
distinctions faded away among those who to the eye of faith, were now
the sons of God,--distinctions overlooked at this hour, as the last
fragment of the moulted plumage is unknown to the eagle soaring in its
strength, no words could better express the sentiment of the time than
those noble ones of old,--"This is none other than the house of God;
this is the gate of heaven."




CHAPTER IV.

_HOW THE OVERLOOK PAPERS CAME TO BE WRITTEN._


"I believe," said the Judge one morning shortly after my arrival, "that
I must supply you with pen and paper, and assign to you a task."

"What can I do? Tell me how to be useful."

"Do not offer too hastily. Let me inform you of a custom which is
observed here like the laws of the Medes and Persians.

"All our guests, at our festival seasons, and I hope that whenever it
can be in your power you will be present, are most seriously enjoined to
bring with them a contribution to our Overlook Papers. From each is
demanded a story, a poem, or an essay. In the evening these are read.
And indeed, I require from each of my friends who receives an
invitation, if he cannot accept it, still to transmit his paper.

"These or copies of them are preserved in the huge book-case in the
library. We sometimes draw upon the old collection, and it is pleasant
to revive the old associations as they are again read to a happy circle.
I ought to have sent you word, and told you to prepare your paper. It
is an unusual thing for me to be guilty of such an omission. As I have
been negligent I must now enjoin you to prepare to do your part with the
others."

"My dear sir, has ever any guest written a paper after his arrival
here?"

"Come! come! I have never asked any guest to do it after he came, who
could probably accomplish it more easily than yourself."

"What shall I write?"

"Whatever you please. A Poem if you will."

"I might make the attempt. But will poetry come 'under compulsion?'
Surely not 'under compulsion.' Shall I cudgel my brains? Will Pegasus go
at my will when I smite him with my staff? How long might I sit here,
the image of despair, and what despair on monumental marble, as desolate
as the poet with fixed eye, unable to indite a line? How long might I be
like the hopeless bird--all promise, but not one unfolded gleam of
beauty? In this free air am I to find the poetic pressure of a prison?
In this old cheerful home, a poet's garret? With your abundant and
hospitable board before me, can I write as famous men of old, when they
wanted a dinner? Am I to sit here, as one has said, waiting for
inspiration as a rusty conductor for a flash of lightning? My dear sir,
I surely can plead exemption. Let me come here, if we live, next
Christmas season or at the early spring or autumnal gathering. I will
provide two if you please. If the first should weary, then the circle
can hope that I have kept the best for the last."

"I do not think that it will answer for one to be a hearer who has no
paper of his own. So let me insist on your compliance."

"Well sir, if you insist on it, I must see what I can do. Would you
object to my producing a poem already published by me in a New York
paper?"

"I am sorry to say that would not be in accordance with our rules. The
piece must be composed for our social gathering."

"Well I must then make the attempt. I would weave a short romance out of
some story I have heard in my travels. But I am always afraid of the sad
being who, searching to the fag-end of memory says, after hearing you,
and approving, let me see, I have heard that, or something like it,
before! I once learned a lesson and received a nervous shock which
easily returns, as I was about to address a meeting, and under a sudden
impression asked the most knowing inhabitant of the village, 'Did any of
the speakers who have addressed you ever tell such a story?' 'Oh! yes,'
said he, with sudden alarm, 'Every one who has been here has told that
story.' Yet that was my main stay, argument, illustration, eloquence. I
had to do the best I could without it. Since then I am in a trepidation
lest I fall into the pit from which I kept my feet at that time."

"Well so much the better. Such caution will insure variety."

"Do not be too sure of that. Excessive care often leads us to the very
errors it would avoid."

So our conversation closed. The paper was written and read. I looked
some time ago in vain for my piece among the Overlook papers. Strange to
say, it was not there. I saw the Judge originally endorse it and tie it
up in the collection. Meta told me when I expressed my surprise that the
document was missing, that she must confess that when she was younger
and more silly, and had her taste less cultivated, she took it one day,
after I had left her father's, secretly from the pile. Regarding it as
of such small consequence, she had not put it back in its place; and as
it was also particularly weak in having a few sentences evidently meant
for her to understand as no one else could. She will find it, she says,
when she next examines her old papers and letters. And she assures me
that it must be safe, because the old house would not trouble itself to
destroy it; the Overlook moths would not dare to touch it, and that it
is destined to outlive its author, even if he had brass enough in him to
make a monument.




I.

_DR. BENSON, OR THE LIVING MAN EMBALMED FOR TWENTY YEARS._


The United States is the oldest country in the world. Many of its
institutions are of a venerable antiquity which cast those of Europe
into the shade. By their side those of Great Britain, France and Germany
seem but of yesterday. The honest impressions of each man substantiate
these assertions so clearly that all argument on the subject would be as
great a work of supererogation as that of carrying shade to a forest.
Ages, countless ages, as all reflecting men are aware, have been
requisite for the development of man into the highest type of
civilization. Not less, it is obvious, than five thousand years could
elevate any human being into a genuine Yankee. Such an immense space of
time must have elapsed before man, passing through each primeval epoch,
could have worn away on Plymouth Rock the caudal appendages that impeded
the progress of humanity.

We have such remarkable institutions among us, such progressive
theorists upon all possible subjects, that the foundations of our
cities must have been laid simultaneously with those of the Pyramids.

A like conviction arises as we compare our accomplished financiers who
can raise up in any plain, mountains of gold, and turn little streams of
promise into seas of bank notes, with the Indian magician whose alchemy
transmuted mutterings and strange figures in the ashes into comfortable
fires, venison, bear's meat, and a variety of comforts for his
terror-striking wigwam. Are there not noted streets in our cities where
some men have discovered the philosopher's stone?

And then look on the systems of our modern politics. Each man can see
what glacier periods have been over the land, what thickness of ice
impenetrable to pure rays from above, melted from beneath, ice which has
ground down to dust the ancient heights of honor, of modest nature
distrusting itself. Yes, we are the oldest people in the wide world.

Even the little village where my history directs our attention has one
savor of dignified antiquity. It has had a long series of names in no
rapid succession. Our antiquarians have not paid sufficient attention to
this subject of the succession of such names borne by our villages and
towns. One cause is our nervous apprehension, that such a study will
reveal a former state of society which people of strong prejudice may
not mention to our honor. Citizens who have long purses acquired in the
sale of farms divided into town lots, who have highly educated and
refined children, do not wish any one to contradict them while they
intimate their illustrious descent, by saying that they remember when
their father or grandfather dwelt at Scrabbletown, Blackeye or
Hardcorner. The honest truth is that these names of these rural towns do
indicate the transmigration of the souls of the places into different
social forms. They often tell of the original solitude, the cluster of
poor dwellings of men a little above the Indian, of small taverns
springing up as the devil has sown the seed, of the free-fights, of the
loose stones in the roads, the mud immeasurably deep, of the reformation
with the advent of the itinerant preacher, of the church, of the
school-house, of the rapid progress in general prosperity. In place of
yielding to the seductive influence of the disquisition which offers
itself to my toil, I shall consider it sufficient to say of our village
that it was honored by becoming the residence of Dr. Benson. It is
sufficient for me to inform my reader that at the time when my history
commences his fame and occupation gave the title to the place. Indeed,
in his honor it bore successively the names of Pill-Town, and Mortar and
Pestle city.

His general history was not one that is uncommon in our land. Many a man
of small education, but who has had a natural turn for the study of
simple means for the cure of ordinary diseases in a country
neighborhood has acquired considerable skill, and done more good, and
far less evil, than could have been anticipated. In fact the ignorant
often lean on such a man with special confidence. They prefer his
services to those of the well-taught and meritorious physician. For they
think it easily explicable, that the learned doctor should often cure
the diseased. Books have taught him what medicines are needful for those
who are sick. But around the quack there is a delightful cloud of
mystery. His genius was surely born with him. He has stumbled on his
remedies by some almost supernatural accident. And then there is the
exciting and most pleasant doubt whether he has not had some dealings
with the devil. You have moreover this advantage, that you acquire all
the benefit of his compact with the evil one, without any guilt on your
part. All that is evil lies on the head of the practitioner.

How noble the calling of the true physician! What more need we say of
his office than that in every sick-room he can look to the Redeemer, and
feel that he employs him to do, what he was continually doing by his own
words when he was on the earth? "Without the power of miracles,"--I
quote from memory words that fell from the lips of one very dear to me
whose voice is no more heard on earth, and I fear I mar the
sentence,--"Without the power of miracles, he goes about doing good, the
blessed shadow of our Lord; and by him God gives sight to the blind,
hearing to the deaf, enables the lame to walk and raises up those almost
fallen into the sleep of death."

As I write, the manly form of our family physician, the form that we
laid in the grave a few years ago, rises before me. Oh! what
unselfishness, what high sense of honor and professional duty, what
compassion for human infirmities, what a grand and enduring perception
of the brotherhood of man, of the one family of rich and poor, learned
and ignorant, didst thou then learn, our dear kind friend, in thy
innumerable ministrations! Literary men have too often indulged in cheap
humor at the cost of the physician. It is easy to caricature anything
grand and sacred. It is easy to cure in the pages of the novel the sick
man who plays his pranks at the expense of the doctor, and eats his
meat, and drinks his wine when the medical advice assures him that he
must fast or die. Just imagine one of these literati to send for his
physician in haste.

"Doctor," he exclaims, "it is well you have come! Do give me some
relief."

"Wait a moment," exclaims the physician! "I have something to read to
you."

"Read to me, doctor! Why I am ill,--alarmed. Depend upon it, I am very
sick. Prescribe for me at once."

"Prescribe for you! Why hear what you wrote concerning physicians. If
they are what you describe, you should never ask them to come near your
sick bed."

"But I wrote only in jest. I described the pretender."

"No, my dear sir, your assault is without limitation. Your attack is
against all men of my profession. Your words were adapted to aid the
ignorant popular prejudice against our art. I will read to you."

I cannot but think that, in such a case, there are not a few writers of
light literature, who would be forced to perceive the meanness of their
assault on a noble profession.

Our hero commenced his public career in a blacksmith's shop, where he
gave assistance in the useful work done by his master on the anvil.
There he displayed a curious talent for healing the diseases of the
horses, which the farmers brought to the place. This gave him some
notoriety. And he never was sent for to heal as a veterinary doctor, on
any occasion, when he did not have the confidence of a man whose eyes
pierced far through the skin, and saw the secret causes of disease.

A change in his fortunes occurred, when a skilful physician, who fled
from France in a time of great political trouble, came to reside in his
neighborhood. All the spare time that our hero could command he spent in
serving him in his fishing excursions--rowing his boat for him, and
pointing out the best places where he could cast his hook--an act that
seemed to be his best solace as an exile. The good stream or lake that
well repaid his skill and patience in the use of his rod, was almost to
him for a season, a Lethe between him and beautiful France.

The amiable Frenchman was not destined long to endure any sorrows on our
soil. At his death, Benson became the possessor of his few books, his
few surgical instruments and some curious preparations. He rented a
small house near the blacksmith's shop and tavern, and placed his books,
the instruments, some strange bones, a curious stuffed animal, and some
jars and bottles prominently in the window. He also had some
unaccountable grandeur of scientific words, understood by all to be
French--a public supposition in evidence of his having been a favorite
pupil of the doctor. And then, as he was a capital fellow at a drink, it
is no marvel that he acquired practice with rapidity. And as money
flowed into his pocket, unhappily the whisky, in a proportionate manner,
flowed down his throat. But as he had an established reputation, he of
course received the compliment: "I would rather have Benson to cure me
if he was drunk than to have any other doctor to cure me if he was
sober." Such was the confidence of the men of Pill-Town in his skill.

Oftentimes when his brain was excited by his potations, he would wander
off into the woods and seek roots and plants, talking to himself in
strange words, and bent, apparently, on some great discovery. He began
to throw out vague hints to some of his companions that he knew of some
strange secret, and could perform a work more wonderful than he had ever
before done in all his practice. But as his associates never dreamed
that any one would make experiments on the bodies of men, and as his
talk of philosophy seemed to be in the clouds, they, more akin to the
clods of earth, heard him with blank minds, so that when he had done
talking, there was no more impression left, than the shadows of passing
birds left on their fields.

Once as he sat with a friend over a bottle of famous whisky, which is
your true leveler, placing the man of science on a level with the
ignorant boor, he gave him a full account of a singular adventure which
he had with an Indian physician. It was a peculiarity of the doctor that
his memory and power of narration increased, as he imbibed increasing
quantities of his primitive beverage. He said that he had wandered away
from home one fine morning, and been lost in the distant forest. He
became very weary and fell asleep. His slumbers were broken by some
sounds that were near to him, and looking through the bushes he saw a
majestic Indian who was searching with great diligence for some roots,
whose use he had imagined no man knew but himself. The doctor said that
he rose, and approaching him with due professional dignity, informed him
that he supposed he was one of the medical fraternity. His natural
conjecture proved to be very correct. They soon became very sociable,
and pledged each other in several good drinks from a flask which the
white man fortunately carried in his pocket. The savage M. D. finally
took him to his laboratory, and in return for some communications from
one well versed in the modern state of medical science in France, which
the red man listened to with the most intense admiration, he disclosed a
variety of Indian cures. Above all he told of a marvelous exercise of
his power, and related the secret means employed under the assurance of
the most solemn promise that it should not be divulged. Dr. Benson told
his friend that this great secret was in his mind morning and evening;
that when he waked at night it haunted him, and that he could not cease
to think of it if he would make every attempt.

When the bottle was nearly empty he said that if his hearer would
promise great secrecy he would relate the narrative of the Indian. The
other gave the required assurances. Three times however the doctor
repeated one specific caution,--"Would he promise not to tell it to his
wife?" and receiving three most earnest pledges, that no curtain
inquisition should exert its rack so successfully, as to extort any
fragment of the confidence, the relater proceeded without fear. I will
tell you, said he, how the red-skin doctor influenced the welfare of a
great Indian Prince.

Awaha was king of a tribe whose territory bordered on one of the great
northern lakes. The eagle soaring when the heavens were filled with the
winged tribes, was not more conspicuous and more supreme in grandeur,
than he, when he stood among all the assembled warriors of the north. As
the thunder-peal when the bolt tore the great oak on the mountains, so
that it must wither and die, exceeded all the other tumult of the storm,
so the shout he uttered in battle was heard amid the fierce cries of
conflict.

The hearts of all the beautiful maidens moved at his approach, as the
graceful flags and wild-flowers move when the breath of the evening wind
seems to seek rest as it passes over the quiet lake. The Indian mothers
said that it was strange that he sought no wife, when his deeds had gone
before him, and seemed to have softened the hearts of such as the wisest
of his race might have chosen for him. He had come from the battles a
great warrior. Were there not daughters of his tribe, who became more
stately and more grave, as though they heard great battle songs when he
came near? Were not these fitted to be the wives of great braves,--the
mothers of sons whose fame would last in war-songs? Surely the great
warrior had need to speak to one who would be saddest of all when he was
away, and most glad when his shadow fell upon the threshold! He speaks
not, and the air around him is too still. The sunbeams seemed wintry,
waiting for his voice. He seemed to leave the paths through the forest
very lonely. The great mountain's summit must not ever be alone, covered
with ice and snow, bright in the sun and in the moonbeams. Let spring
come and cover it with soft green, and let the sweet song fill its
trees, as the warm light streamed over it from the morning.

Many of the tribe marvelled that he did not seek for a bride the
beautiful Mahanara. Some said that it was whispered among those who knew
her best, that her thoughts were as the scent of the sweet vine she had
planted and trained over the door of her wigwam, intended for the narrow
circle at home, but drifting away far off on the fitful breeze; for when
she would not, she sighed as she remembered the young warrior.

Once, some of the village girls told her that they heard that he had
chosen a bride who lived far beyond the waters, and the great ridge of
the Blue Mountains.

She replied, and her words seemed to die as they reached the ear, that
the one whom he had chosen for his wife, ought not to plant the corn for
his food but where the flowers covered the sod which she was to overturn
in her spring tasks, that she must bring him water from the spring on
the high hills where the Great Spirit had opened the fountains with his
lightning, and where in vallies the pure snow lingered longest of all
that fell in the winter; that when he came back from the hunter's far
journey or from the terrors of his war path, her face must assure him of
all the love and praise of his tribe, as the lake tells all the moon and
stars shed abroad of glory in the pure midnight.

The story that was a secret sorrow to her was false, and no maiden
should have whispered it. It came not over a path that was trodden by
warriors. The dove would not fly in the air which was burdened by such
tidings. Awaha loved her, and because she feared to meet him freely, and
seemed to turn away as he drew near, he thought that she loved him not.

One night he fell asleep by the great fire of the hunters. The
companions of the chase had counted their spoils, and spoke with joy of
their return, of the glad smiles that awaited them, of the hum of the
voices of the children as they drew near to the village.

He dreamt that he came near to his solitary dwelling-place. He was all
alone on the path of the forest. He heard the unending sounds which are
in the great wilderness, none of which ever removes the lonely shadow
from the heart,--the shadow that has fallen on endless generations, that
speaks of countless graves amid the trees, and of countless hosts that
are out of sight in the spirit land.

That I could hear, he thought, one voice breaking the stillness of my
way! That I could look to the end of the thick trees and know that when
I issued from their darkness, as the light would be above me, so the
light would be in my home.

As he was thus borne away by the fancies of the night he murmured the
name of Mahanara.

By his side was her brother, who loved him more than his life. He heard
the name, and rejoiced in the assurance which it taught him. When he
spoke of the murmur of the dream the next day, as they were alone on the
great prairie, he received the open confession. And then the brother
uttered words which filled the heart with hope.

When they returned from the hunting-grounds he directed his steps to the
dwelling of her father,--crossing to reach it, the little stream that
she loved to watch as it foamed amid the white stones that rested in
its bed.

Around the walls were trophies of the chase and of the battle. But the
wild songs and the stories of former days were no more heard from his
lips. He seldom spoke but of the Spirit-land, and in strange words for
the home of the Indian, prayed that the Great One would teach the tribes
to love peace. He said he was going to new hunting grounds, but not to
new war paths. The people of the wilderness that he would meet in the
sky would speak in voices that never would utter the cry of strife.

When the evening came upon them, and the old man sat silent, looking
gladly on the stars, Awaha said to Mahanara, "Walk with me to these
fir-trees that echo murmurs to yon stream."

"Mahanara's place is here," she said gently. "Here she can prepare the
corn and the venison, and spread the skins for her guest. But in the
fir-grove there is no door for her to open. There she cannot say,
Welcome. There she cannot throw the pine-knot on the flames to brighten
the home for thy presence. Stay here and say some words of the
Spirit-land to my father. I will sew the beads, and weave the split
quills, and the voices I shall hear shall be pleasant like the mingling
of the murmurs of the rill and of the wind when the leaves that we see
not are in motion, sounds which I so love, for they were among the
first sounds I heard by the side of my mother."

Then he replied, "I must say here what I would have said to thee under
the stars and the night. Why was it not said in the days that are past?
The stream could not come to the water-flower, for it was frozen. The
sun came the other day, and the winter-power took off its bonds from the
stream. Long have I loved thee--loved thee here as I wandered in the
village--loved thee far off on the prairies--loved thee when the shout
told that the vanquished fled from our onset. Be my bride, and the Great
Spirit will know where is the Indian whose step on earth is the
lightest."

He saw that the tears were falling fast as he spoke, and that she did
move as a maiden at the plea of her lover.

"Thou hast waited," she said, "to move thy flower until the winter has
hold of its roots in the ground hard as the rock. Hadst thou come before
the snow had melted, then Mahanara had gone with thee. Then together we
had cared for him who can go out on the hunt no more. But seest thou
these links of the bleached bone carved with these secret symbols? Seest
thou the fragment of the broken arrow-head? Thou knowest how these bind
me to another. I will pray for thee to the Great Spirit. A warrior's
wife may pray for a warrior. Seek thou another and a better bride among
the daughters of our tribe."

"It cannot be," he said. "I shall go away from the land where the sun
shines, like the lone tree amid the rocks. It shall wither and die, and
who will know that it ever cast its shade for the hunter."

"Ah not so," she said, "it is the shadow of to-day. Seek the wife that
is on the earth for thee. If she has sorrow send for me and I will hold
up her fainting head. If I comfort her, then shall I also comfort thee.
I will speak the praises of thy tribe and she will love me."

Awaha sat in his lonely house day after day, and friends looked on him
in sorrow and said that the Great Spirit was calling him, for his last
path was trodden. They sought me in their sorrow, not regarding the long
weary journey. My home is in a deep dark cave on the side of the
mountain. The great horn from the monster that has never roamed the
forest since the Indian began to hand down the story of his day hangs on
the huge oak at the entrance. The blasts shake the forest, and I hear it
far down below the springs in the earth where I burn my red fires.

In vain I tried all my arts to drive from him the deep and lasting
sorrow. So I sought the aid of my mother whose home is near the great
river that pours its waters from the clouds--over which the storm of
heaven seems to rage in silence. She heard my story, and she arrayed
herself in her strange robe bright with the skins of snakes from a land
where the sun always keeps the earth green and warm. On her head were
the feathers of the eagle and of the hawk.

She kindled her fire on the stones that were heaped together and threw
in them bones and matted hair.

Then she drank of the cup, death to all but for her lips, and poured
that which was left on the flame. The fire told her the story of days
that were to come. She said that Awaha must live. When three winters had
come and gone Mahanara would be alone, for wrapped in his hunting skins,
the braves would lay her husband in his grave. Let him live--let Awaha
live--for he and Mahanara shall yet dwell among their people. The vine
shall fall. It can twine around another tree. Let Awaha live.

So I sought him--and his eye was dim--he scarce knew the voices of those
around him. I gave him the precious elixir which my mother alone on
earth could draw from roots such as no eye of man has ever seen. The
young men placed him on a litter and bore him to a far off river. There
we made the raft, covered it with leaves, and we floated gently onward
to my cave. Then I said leave him with me. In a few days he will have
strength and shall go down these waters to his canoe. A new home shall
he seek where there are no paths ever trodden by Mahanara. There he
shall not look round as the breeze moves the bushes, as though she was
near him. He shall not see flowers there which shall say, you gathered
such for her in the warm days when the Indian village was full of hearts
as bright as the sun shining down upon it. The woods everywhere has a
place for the warrior. There are no mountains where the battle-cry
cannot echo. There are no red men where the great man shall not be
great. I then gave him strange food that a hunter from the spirit land
once threw down at the tent of my mother when she had healed his little
child that he left to the care of his tribe. I then compounded in the
cup which was white and shining, as it had been on a high rock for ages
to be bleached in the moonbeams, the draught that he was to drink that
he might sleep for three years. I laid him gently in the clift in the
rock above my cave. The warm spring ran winter and summer beneath the
place of his rest. I covered him with light bruised roots that would add
to his strength. I placed over him the cedar boughs, matted, so that the
rain could reach him. Over these, folds of leaves well dried in the heat
of the cavern. I laid the loose stones over all and scattered the dust
there which the beasts flee from, waking the echo of the forest. There
he slept until the great stillness come over the husband of Mahanara,
and the great song had told of his wisdom, of his battles, as the
warriors stood by his grave.

One day she sat by the side of the stream,--and not on the bank where
she had often chanted the wild song to Awaha. Her hands were forming the
beautiful wampum belt. I came to her, and as we spoke of past days, her
eye rested on the chain of Awaha, that I wound and unwound as if I
thought not of it, before her eyes that rested on it for a moment only
to look away, and to look far down into the deep water.

I laid it secretly near her,--and left her, crossing on the white stones
of the stream, and passing into the deep forest.

When the dark night came over all the village, I crept silently to her
wigwam. There she sat by the fire and pressed the chain to her heart,
and looked sadly on the flames that rose and fell, and gleamed on one
who was near and unknown.

He must live. So I sought him when the red star was over the mountain.
Three moons more could he have slept, and have yet been called from his
sleep to see the bright sunbeams.

Oh how beautiful the warrior, when all the coverings were taken away,
and I saw him again as on the day when he first fell into his slumber.

As I waked him, he said, "yesterday you said that I should live. I feel
strange strength after the sleep of the night that is past."

When he fell asleep a great night had crept up to his eye,--and he saw
not the hunting-ground,--the fierce battle,--the wigwam,--but
darkness,--and beyond it darkness,--and beyond that the land of all
spirits. Now his eye was sad,--but he looked as one who heard voices
call him to go forth, and be not as the stone that lies on the
hill-side.

I sought Mahanara, and told her that he would come back from far, and
would seek her as the bride of a warrior. I sent him to her home, and he
trod the forest paths as the sunshine sweeps from wave-crest to
wave-crest in the brook that hurries on, leaving the sound of peace in
its murmurs. So out of the years they met, as the breeze so sweet from
over the wild-flowers and trees of the valley, and the wind that carried
strength from the sides of the mountain.

"Can you marvel that they call me the great medicine man among the
tribes? Thou art a great brother. Thy fire-water is good. The white men
honor thee. Thou keepest the sod that is wet with tears from being
turned over. They call thee the very great man of thy tribe." I will not
tell you all that he said of me. Let others learn that of him, and speak
of it. Then he said,--"Brother tell thou me more of thy wonderful
powers. I will teach thee how to mingle the cup for the sleep of many
years." "So he told me," said the doctor, "how to compound the mixture.
And the secret no one shall hear from my lips. If you will, I will put
you to sleep for as long a time as you can desire. Put your money out
at interest. Go to sleep until all you have has been doubled. Then let
me wake you, and you can enjoy it."

This desire to put a fellow-creature into this sleep took possession of
the doctor, and it was his dream by day and night, when he was tipsy, or
half ready to become so. He tried to persuade a good-natured negro,
Jack, who lived near his premises, to indulge in the luxury. But Jack
assured him that he was as much obliged to him as if he had done it.

At last he formed his plan, and attempted to carry it into execution.
There was Job Jones, who lived, nobody knew how, and nobody cared
whether he lived or not. When he could gain a few coppers, he was a
great and independent statesman at the tavern. And when he had no pence,
he walked along in the sun as if he had no business in its light, and
with a cast-down look as if he thanked the world for not drowning him,
like supernumerary kittens.

So one evening the doctor easily enticed Job to his office. Then he
partook of whisky until he lost all sense of all that occurred around
him. The poor fellow soon fell asleep. The great experimenter dragged
him to a box prepared for him in the cellar. Then he poured down his
throat the final draught, and covered him with great boughs of cedar. He
then ascended to his office. His first thought was that of triumph.
"There," he said, "was that shallow Doctor Pinch, the practitioner at
the next village, who had called him an ignoramus, and said that he was
not fit to be the family physician of a rabbit. He had written the
account of the boy who had fallen down and indented his skull, and that
some of his brains had to be removed,--all done so skilfully by Doctor
Pinch, that he was ever after, a brighter fellow than ever before. His
mother always boasted of the manner in which the doctor had 'japanned'
his skull. But what will he be when I wake up Job? Sleep away, Job! You
will have for years to come, the easiest life of any man in these United
States. No want of shoes, or clothes, or whisky. When you wake you shall
have a new suit, after the fashion of that coming time. Doctor Pinch!
Pooh! what is Doctor Pinch to Doctor Benson?"

After a little while a cry of murder rang through his half intoxicated
brain. A great chill crept over his frame. The night became horrible in
its stillness.

He must try the old resource. It never failed, whisky must restore the
energy. He took up the glass from the table. It fell from his hands as
if he was paralyzed.

He had made a fearful mistake. The cup of whisky which he had poured out
for himself was the last drink which he had ministered to Job. He had
taken the sleeping draught by mistake.

When they came, he thought and found him so still, so senseless, and
that for days he never moved, would they not bury him! Then he might
smother in the grave! Or waking some twenty years hence, he would wake
in some tomb, some vile epitaph over him, written by that Pinch, and
call for aid, and die, and die.

He saw himself in his coffin. The neighbors were all around him. The
clergyman was ready to draw an awful moral against intemperance from his
history. He was about to assure his hearers that no one could doubt what
had become of such a man in another world.

His brain became more and more confused. He sank on the floor senseless.
So Job slumbered in the box, and the doctor on the floor of the office.

       *       *       *       *       *

Twenty years have elapsed. Dr. Benson wakes. It is a clear morning. How
has the world changed! There, out of his window he sees the village.
That row of neat dwellings is his property. He has a pleasant home to
wake in. His wife is the very personification of happiness and
prosperity. The clothes in which he arrays himself are a strange
contrast to the miserable habiliments in which he fell down to sleep on
the office floor twenty years ago. There is the spire of the
church--and thank God, he loves to enter there as a sincere and humble
worshipper.

What a change in this lapse of years! What an awakening! How is the
world altered!

If the doctor's voice reached the ear of the intemperate man, he said,
"Friend, better the fang of the rattlesnake than your cup. The bands
that you think to be threads, are iron bands that are clasping you not
only for your grave, but forever. Awake! and see if the good Lord will
not give you a world changed, as the world has thus been to Dr.
Benson."




II.

_THE GHOST AT FORD INN--NESHAMONY._


PART FIRST.

    There, where the time-worn bridge at School House Run,
    Spans o'er the stream unquiet as our lives,
    You find a place where few will pause at night;
    Where the foot-fall is quick, and all press on
    As if a winter's blast had touched the frame,
    And men drew to themselves. Oft there is seen,
    So men aver, the quiet gliding ghost.

      Descend yon hill, near woods so desolate,
    With upward gloom, and tangled undergrowths,
    And shadows mouldering in the brightest day.
    Near is the Indian spring's unmurmuring flow.
    The summit now is gladdened by the Church.
    You leave all village sounds, and are alone,
    On grass-worn paths your feet emit no sound.
    The thick damp air is full of dreary rest,
    And stillness there spreads out like the great night.

      Upon the left, hidden by aged oaks,
    Is a small cedar grove; where broken winds
    Are organ-like with requiem o'er some graves.
    A low stone wall, and never-opened gate
    Protect the marble records of the dead.

      To stand at sunny noon, or starry night
    Upon the arch, where you can yield the soul,
    Captive to nature's impress, power with peace,
    Is stillness from afar. The solitude
    Seems linked with some far distant, distant space
    In the broad universe, where worlds are not.
    Unrest with rest is there. We often call
    That peace, where thoughts are deep, but where the soul
    Moves as the great, great sea, in mighty waves.
    Here memories for tears, forgotten thoughts
    Come without seeking. Just as the winds of May
    Bring with unlaboring wings, from unknown fields,
    Sweet scents from flowers, and from the early grass.

      The fearful man, who left the village store,
    Near to the cross roads, where the untutored tongue
    Supplies the gossip of the printed sheet,
    Has here beheld the mist-like, awful ghost.
    The rustic lover under midnight stars,
    Detained so long by Phebe's sorceries,
    His little speech taking so long to say,
    Has had his faith sore tried, as he has asked,
    Will I, next week, pass here alone, again?
    Far the most haunted spot lies yet beyond,
    Follow the road until you reach the Ford,
    There at the mouldering pile of wall and logs,
    Where once the floating raft was as a bridge,
    A pure white spirit oftentimes is seen.
    She sometimes wanders all along the shore;
    Sometimes from off the rocks, she seems to look
    For something in the waters. Then again
    Where the trees arch the road that skirts the bank,
    And night is like the darkness of a cave,
    This gentle spirit glides. Earth's sorrow yet,
    Its burden, weary burden, borne alone.

      Sad is the story of her earthly life.
    You see that lonely house upon the green,
    With its broad porch beneath that sycamore.
    'Tis now a pleasant undisturbed abode.
    There lingereth much of ancient time within:
    Long may it cling there in these days of change!
    Quaint are the rooms, irregular. The bright fire
    Glows from the corner fire-place. Often there
    I sit, and marvel o'er the shadowy past.
    It is a place of welcome. Loving hearts
    Extend the welcome. Angels welcome thus.
    Dear sisters, reading there the purest page,
    Planning some act of gentleness to wo,
    The selfishness of solitary life,
    Not finding place amid your daily thoughts,
    For you commune with that activity
    Of love most infinite, that once came down
    From the far Heaven, to human form on earth.
    The music of the true, the harmony
    Of highest thoughts, that have enthroned as kings
    The best in heart, and head of all our race,
    Have their great kindred echoes as you read.
    O as your prayers ascend, pray oft for me,
    And then I shall not lose the name of friend.
    The golden link that bindeth heart to heart
    Forever, is the Love and prayer in Christ.
    Since the Great Being gives me love at home,
    The Diamond payment for my worth of dust,
    Gives me that bright and daily light of earth,
    I'm bold, and covetous of Christian love.

      This house, in ancient days a wayside inn,
    Has sheltered men of mark. Here Washington
    Rested his weary head without despair,
    Before the sinking tide rose with bright waves
    At Trenton, and the spot where Mercer fell.
    Here youthful La Fayette was also seen,
    Whose smile, benign in age, was joy to me,
    As my loved Father, at our fire-side spake
    To him, as the true Patriot speaks to those
    Who win a nation's homage by their toils.
    Here even now, on an age-colored pane,
    The letters, diamond-cut, show Hancock's name.

      The war had found the host of the Ford Inn
    A happy man; no idler round a bar;
    For his chief calling was upon his farm,
    With rich fields open to the sun, amid
    The dense surrounding forests, where the deer
    Still lingered by the homes of laboring men.
    He bore arms for his country. And he heard
    The last guns fired at Yorktown for the free.

      One little daughter played around his hearth;
    Oft tracked his steps far in the furrowed field;
    Looked up with guileless eye in his true face.
    After each absence short, her merry shout
    Of greeting at his coming, rose as sure
    As sounds from those dark cedars on the shore,
    When the winds rise and break their mirror there.

      Oh happy child! She also learned the love
    That places underneath her the strong arms
    Of Him who held the children when on earth,
    Journeying along his pathway to the cross.
    She opened all her gentle Heaven-touched heart
    To all the unknown teachings of her home.

      The wild-flower's beauty passed into her thoughts,
    And as she gazed, and saw in earth and sky,
    In every form the love of God stream forth,
    She knew of beauty that could never fade.
    For He, from whom these emanations came,
    Will never cease to be a God revealed.

      Happy the child, for her fond parents both
    Had souls to kindle with her sympathies.
    They learned anew with her the blessed love,
    Which makes the pure like children all their days.
    With her pure mind repassed the former way,
    Their age and youth blended at once in her.

      There was a small church in the little town
    Of Bristol, some miles distant, over which
    A loving pastor ruled with watchful care.
    He came from England,--and but few had known
    That he was bishop, of that secret line
    Which Ken, and other loyalists prolonged,
    Prepared for any changes in the realm.
    The good man loved his people at the ford.
    The child's expanding mind had ample seals
    Of his kind guidance. From his store of books
    He culled the treasures for her thoughtful eye.

      Another memorable influence,
    To add refining grace, came from the town.
    One, whose sweet beauty threw a woman's charm
    Over a household, seeking health in air,
    That rustles forest leaves, that sweeps the fields,
    Came to their home, and was not useless there.

      She threw round Ellen, in resplendent light,
    What Ellen knew before, in fainter day.

      The lady was so true in all her grace,
    Such open nature, that the child, all heart,
    Could think, could love, could be as one with her.
    How sad, that the refinement of the world,
    Should often be the cost of all that's true!

      From the volcano's side the dreadful stream,
    That buried the great city, pressed its way,
    To every room of refuge. Prison ne'er
    Gave bondage like those dark and awful homes.
    Around each form came the encrusting clay:
    Death at the moment. Dying ne'er so still.
    In passing ages all the form was gone:
    The dark clay held the shapes of what had been,
    And when the beauteous city was exhumed,
    Into those hollows, moulds of former life,
    They poured the plaster, and regained the form,
    Of men, or women, as they were at death.
    So all that lives in nature, in the heart,
    Is often, living, buried by the world,
    By its dead stream. Dust only can remain.
    And in its place the statue--outward all
    The form of beauty--the pretense of soul.

      How the child basked in all her loveliness!
    Unconscious, she was moulded day by day,
    Sweet buds that in her heart strove to unfold,
    Had waited for that sun. And Ellen saw
    Her mother in changed aspect. The soft charms
    Of her new friend, revealed at once in her,
    More of the woman's natural tenderness.

    The gentle child, had not a single love
    For all the varied scenes of bank and stream--
    And these to her were almost all the earth,
    But as each glory centered round her home.
    If the descending sun threw down the light
    Tinged with the mellow hues of autumn leaves,
    Upon the waters till they shone as gold,
    And yet diminished not the million flames
    That burnt upon the trees, all unconsumed,
    It was to her a joy. But deeper joy
    Came with the thought, that all her eye surveyed,
    Was but a repetition of the scene,
    When her fond mother, at some former day,
    Had by her side blessed God for these his works.
    And all the softest murmurs of the air
    Recalled her father's step, and his true voice.
    Thus home entwined itself with every thought,
    As that great vine with all that wide-branched oak.


PART SECOND.

      And in this quiet scene, the child grew up,
    To know not inequalities of lot,
    Of any rank dissevering man from man.
    Once from the splendid coach, the city dame
    And her young daughter entered the Ford Inn.

      As Ellen gazed upon the little one
    Whose eye recalled the dove, and then the gleam
    That morning threw upon her much loved waves,
    And on the tresses, like the chesnut fringe
    In full luxuriance, she came forth and stood
    With such a guileless, and admiring love,
    That tenderness was won. And then they strolled
    O'er Ellen's favorite haunts. She asked the child,
    Have you such waters, and such trees beside
    Your home far off? The little languid eye
    Gazed vacantly on all the beauty there,
    And then, as one who had not heard the words,
    And least of all could give forth a response
    To nature's loving call, even as it passed
    To her, through Ellen's eyes, and Ellen's voice,
    And from her kindled soul,--she turned again,
    Absorbed in the small wagon which they drew,
    And to the stones they skimmed upon the stream.

      Just for a brief space, down there seemed to fall
    A veil between the two--a veil like night.
    All Ellen's greater, deeper swell of tides
    Of soul, forever dashing on the cliffs
    On which mind's ocean-great forever beat
    Their swell of thunder, here could find no height
    That could reverberate. And yet her heart
    Was all too noble, high, serenely pure,
    Too Christ-taught ever thus to stand apart.

      The tender gentleness, the laughing eye,
    The soul responsive to the moment's joy,
    The power to love, the softening sympathy
    With every bird or squirrel that appeared,
    Or rabbit, scarce afraid, with wondering eye,
    The love of parents, her sweet talk of friends,
    And above all, a heart to beat so true
    To all that One in heaven had said to her,
    Were most alluring powers. Ellen forgot
    Wherein they differed: And their souls then chimed
    As sounds of bells, blended in summer's wind.
    So, as if sunbeams faltering on the bank,
    The cloud departing, creep o'er all the green,
    Her brightening interest rested on the child.

      And when they parted at the bridge of logs,
    Though the child's dress was gorgeous, and the pomp
    Of city livery from the chariot shone,
    While the soft tear was in our Ellen's eye,
    There still dwelt all unknown in her sweet mind,
    All free from pride, the deep inspiring wish,
    That she could raise this merry-hearted one
    Above herself: and then there came the thought,
    Unconscious, causing sorrows--higher aims--
    That the one gone was poor, and she was rich.

      There was a loneliness, and so she sought
    Her mother; whose companionship was peace:
    Who ever won her to her wonted rest.

      There is a poetry in many hearts
    Which only blends with thought through tenderness:
    It never comes as light within the mind
    Creating forms of beauty for itself.
    It has an eye, and ear for all the world
    Can have of beauty. You will see it bend
    Over the cradle, sorrow o'er the grave.
    It knows of every human tie below,
    The vast significance. Unto its God
    It renders homage, giving incense clouds
    To waft its adorations. By the cross,
    It hears the voice, "How holy all is here!"
    It speaks deep mysteries, and yet the clue
    Is most apparent to the common mind.
    Its sayings fall like ancient memories;
    We so accept them. Natures such as these
    Are often common-place, until the heart
    Is touched, and then the tones from gates of heaven.
    Such are the blessed to brighten human life--
    To give a glory to our earth-born thoughts--
    To teach us how to act our deeds as kings,
    Which we might else perform as weary slaves.
    They give us wings, not sandals, for the road
    Full of dry dust. And such the mother was.
    So as we tell you of the child, there needs
    No voice to say, and such the woman was.

      One day she sought her father in the field,
    Just before sunset, ready for his home.
    And as they reached the rocks along the shore,
    Where the road turns, to meet the deep ravine,
    Nigh unto Farley, a faint cry for help
    Rang in their ears. It was a manly voice
    Grieving through pain. They turned aside, and found
    A stranger, who had fallen, as he leapt
    From out his boat. His fallen gun and dress
    Proclaimed the sportsman. Aid was soon at hand,
    And in their dwelling he found friends, and care.

    Days past. His mother came, and soon she found
    He spake to Ellen, Ellen unto him;
    As they spake not to others. And it seemed,
    Such a perpetual reference in his talk,
    As if he had not now a single thought,
    Which had not been compared with thought of hers.

      At first her pride was moved. And while she stood
    Irresolute, the spell was fixed: as when
    The power of spring thaws winter to itself.
    She knew her son was worthy: and she knew
    Here, in the wide-world must he seek a wife.
    And in due time she was his fair-haired wife.

      They had a rural home across the stream.
    Their lights at night answered the cheerful light
    Of her paternal home. Their winter's fires
    Mingled their gleam upon the dark night wave,
    Or on the ice. By summer's winds her voice
    Was wafted o'er the waters, as she sang:
    And loving hearers blessed her in their hearts.

    Oh! what a joy, when in her arms they placed
    Her son--ah doomed to be her only born!
    Her cup of happiness seemed now so full.
    And then the Father, knowing all to come,
    Gave her more grace, and so she loved him more,
    And had no Idol. But, as days rolled on
    Such sorrow came, I scarce can tell the tale.
    She saw her husband's manly strength all gone.

      There was a withering tree, in the spring time,
    Which on the lawn, seemed struggling to assume
    The Autumn's hues amid the world's full green.
    He faintly smiled, and said, "So do I fade."
    Soon it was dead. He lingered slowly on.
    Hopes came: hopes faded. From the early world
    'Tis the same story. It was well for her,
    In this her sorrow, she had learned to weep
    In days of bliss, as she had read the page
    Which tells of Jesus bearing his own cross.

      His mother came, but Ellen was repelled
    By the stern brow of one who met the shock
    And would not quail. That hard and iron will
    Was so unlike _her_ firmness. She was one
    Who had ruled abjects. Sorrow seemed a wrong.

      The parting time drew near. And then as one
    Who asked as one gives law. "This little boy
    Should dwell with me. Thereby shall he attain
    All discipline to form the noble man.
    Even as I made his Father what he was,
    So will I now, again, care for the child.
    Let him with me. And he shall often come
    And visit you. This surely will be wise."
    We need not say that Ellen too was firm.

      A mother's love! In all the world a power,
    To educate as this! Could any wealth
    Of other learning recompense this loss!
    Would this stern woman ripen in his heart
    Fruits, that angelic eyes beheld with joy?
    "When the boy grew, at times she'd gladly send
    With thanks, the child to all this proffered care."
    But now--to send him now! Why at the thought
    A darkness gathered over all the world.
    From all things came a voice, "All, all alone,
    The husband is not--the child far away."

      There was strange meaning in the angry eye;
    A strange defiance, and an unknown threat,
    Enmity and a triumph. As if a triumph gained.
    A nation crushed, her husband's mother looked,
    No flush was on her face--her voice the same.

      Coldly she said, farewell. And Ellen held
    The child with firmer grasp, when she was gone.
    Then she had sorrow that they thus should part;
    For she felt all the reverence death made due,
    And also mourned rejection of her love.

      As the child slept one night, watched by his nurse,
    She crossed the river on the bridge of logs,
    To reach her parents. Under the bright stars
    The Neshamony, and its hurried waves,
    Rising and falling all around her path.
    No peace in all the Heavens that she could see
    Was like her peace. "I suffer here," she said,
    "But suffering, I shall learn more love for all."

      She had returned. Her footsteps died away,
    Her parents stood yet in the open air,
    Where they had parted with her for the night.

      Then o'er the stream there came an awful cry.
    It was her cry. Oh agony to hear!
    It stilled all sounds besides. It seemed to make
    The wide-arched Heavens one call to echo it.
    Parents and others rushed there with affright,
    In breathless terror. Nurse and child were gone.
    Each wood around, and every forest road
    Gleamed all the night with torches. But no cheer
    Rose to proclaim a trace of faintest hope.
    One traveler said, that on a distant road
    He met a carriage, hurrying with strange speed,
    And heard, in passing, cries of a young child.
    In vain they follow. Hopeless they return.

      Oh wondrous, the ingenious plan devised
    By that poor mother to regain her child!
    Her parents tried, as if for life and death
    To give her aid: and saw that she must die:
    For patience such as hers was all too grand
    To linger long on earth. She day by day
    Trod her old haunts. But never did she see
    The Heaven, or beauteous world. Her pallid lips
    Moved with perpetual prayer. And when she leaned
    On those who loved her, the storm-tossed at rest,
    She was as quiet as in days, when she
    Was but an infant. When they spoke of hope
    She smiled. It was a smile of love, not hope.
    It was indeed simplicity to one,
    Just on the threshold where His people pass,
    And where, forever, they have more than hope.

      All saw that she attained a mystic life,
    That was not of the earth. What might she had
    To love the sorrowing! By the dying bed
    She seemed as if she had not known a pang,
    Her voice so peaceful. Little children round
    Gazed sorrowful: and in their confused thought
    Deemed that the anguish of her little child
    Weeping its mother, was her dying pain;
    And thought how desolate fond hearts would be
    If they were gone, as was her little one.

      One sweet Lord's Day she knelt down at the rail,
    In her loved Church, and had forgot all grief,
    Receiving there the hallowed Bread and Wine,
    And the one shadowed forth had strengthened her,
    So that she fed on food come down from Heaven.
    The others moved. But she was in her place.
    The Pastor came, and found that she was dead.
    Oh how the tears of Christians fell that day!
    Oh how they thanked God for her good release!
    And so she went to her eternal rest.

      But men, unreasoning, said they saw her form,
    Oft in the night, along the river shore--
    Oft at the Ford, which now is crossed no more.
    And men will say, in firmness of belief,
    That when the Inn was closed, and no man dwelt
    In its forsaken walls, a light was seen
    In Ellen's room. And then they also say,
    That pure while flowers which never grew before,
    Now come with Spring, where her bright spirit walks.
    My children say, that if you hear the owl
    Along her pathway, you may hasten on
    Sure that her spirit will not meet you there.
    But should you hear a bird of plaintive song,
    Break the night's stillness, then go far around
    By field and wood--for you may see her form
    Along the shore she gladdened with her life--
    A shore of many sorrows at the last.




III.

_MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BIOGRAPHY;--OR, LITERATURE FOR A FAIR WIDOW._


I had just concluded my first cause at the bar. My duty had been the
defence of a man, whom the jury, without leaving the box, condemned to
be hung. My friends said that I spoke very eloquently. I consoled myself
for my want of success, by remembering that my client had put into my
hands, sorry evidence of his innocence, in place of having allowed me to
arrange the circumstances of his murderous deed, so that the testimony
against him might have at least, some degree of inconsistency and doubt.
But the rash creature formed his plan for killing a man out of his own
head. A poor, stupid, blundering head it was.

I have always regarded that trial with a cool, philosophical mind. I
think that any gentleman, who indulges himself in that rather
exceptionable occupation of shedding the blood of his fellow-man,
without first consulting a lawyer, deserves to be executed. And, verily,
this fellow got his deserts.

Well, as I sat in my office, perfectly calm and composed, some hours
after the case was decided, I received a pretty note from a widow lady.
I had often met her at our pleasant little evening parties. She was on a
visit to one of her friends in our green village; was very pretty, was
said to be quite agreeable, and it was obvious that she was much admired
by the gentlemen. As to her age--to say the least on that subject, which
I consider, in such a case, to be the only gentlemanly mode of
procedure--she was some years older than she wished to be accounted.

Her particular friends said that she had been very beautiful as a girl.
She was one of that select class, scattered over our country, concerning
each of whom there was a family tradition, that on some occasion of
public ceremonial, General Washington had paused and stood opposite to
her in mute admiration. I know that the great Father of his country was
reported to have paid such a tribute to one of my maiden aunts--and that
the story procured from her nephews and nieces a large portion of
respect. I boasted, as a boy, of this fact--regarding it as a sprig of a
foreign aristocratic family, would the honors of his aunt, the Duchess.
But an unreliable boy at our school matched this history from the
unwritten archives of his vulgar relatives. So, in great disgust, I held
my tongue on the subject for the future.

Well, thought I, as I mused over the note of the widow, the formation
of some of her letters indicating a romantic turn of mind; this is,
indeed, a strange, a very strange world. Here I have just done with a
client who must get himself hung. A dull, stupid fellow; a blockhead of
the most knotty material, "unwedgeable" by any possible force of common
sense; a spot on the face of the earth! Hang him! Hanging is too good
for him. He was a fellow who had neither eyes, nor nose, nor mouth for
the attracted observation of a jury, nor any history, nor any ingenuity
in his murderous deed,--as a thread on which a poor advocate could
suspend one gem of argument, one gem of eloquence to blaze and dazzle
the eyes of the twelve substantial citizens, whose verdict was to life
or death. And now here is a call to attend to some legal business to be
done in the sunshine of a fair lady's favor! Has she heard of the rare
ability displayed in the defence of this man who is so soon to be
suspended in the air, as a terror to evil doers? Or has she been allured
by my good looks and agreeable manners? Handsome!--a few years older
than myself, and then a good little fortune, which my legal knowledge
could protect. Well, if this world be odd, I must make the best of it.
Society is a strange structure; and happy is the man who is a statue
ready for his appropriate pedestal.

It is unquestionably an amiable trait in human character which clothes
those, who by special circumstances acquire marked relations with us, in
attractions which surpass ordinary charms.

I must freely confess that I never saw the widow look so interesting as
at the hour when I made my visit. I presented myself with dignity, as
one who represented learning at the bar, and future dignities on the
bench. She received me kindly. There was a seriousness in her demeanor,
an obvious earnestness, as of one who had a burden on the mind, so that
I perceived that the occasion was one of great importance.

I ought here to inform the gentle reader that it had been my good
pleasure, instigated by ambition natural to young men, and as a
relaxation from my graver studies, to indite various articles in prose
and verse for the _Newark Democrat_;--a paper which was supposed by the
editor, the host at the Bald Eagle Inn, the headquarters of the ruling
political party in our town, and also by several members of the
Legislature who could read any kind of printing, to exert a great
influence over the destinies of our country.

There was one contribution of mine, entitled, "The Flame Expiring in the
Heart," which obtained great admiration, and was committed to memory by
a number of the young ladies at Miss Sykes' boarding-school. It was
copied into both of the New York papers. Just, however, as it seemed to
be securing a place for itself in American poetry, some one, urged by
envy, and under the instigation of very bad taste,--some said it was
Paulding, some Washington Irving,--but that was simply slanderous,--I
say some one of more self-conceit than of the gift of appreciation of
pure versification, and of elevated sentiment, wrote a reply. It had a
hypocritical dedication as if the author of the aforesaid poem was
affectionately addressed, and as if the utmost tenderness of sorrow was
displayed in sympathy. To crown all, the coarseness of the writer was
shown in the title, "A Bellows to Fan the Expiring Flame of Alonzo in
the Newark Democrat."

However it is not necessary for me to dwell on my literary career. I was
compelled to allude to it, in order that you could understand the
reasonableness of the conduct of the lady under the circumstances which
I now describe.

After a few words of greeting, she at once descended into the "midst of
things." She informed me that the reasons of her sending for me, were
her convictions of my goodness of heart, which she gleaned, no doubt,
from the tone of my poetry, of my elevated desire to promote the
interests of science and of letters, and her high idea of my literary
abilities, particularly as a writer of prose.

Here I felt that her critical skill was in error. She had not, perhaps,
as much natural capacity for the admiration of sterling poetry as of
prose. Without intending to hint that I pretend to the false humility of
undervaluing my prose style, I am satisfied, that to say the least, my
poetry is in all respects its equal. But to return from this brief
digression; the fair one proceeded to say, that she perceived that I had
a remarkable gift in narrative.

Now, her deceased husband, she said, was a very remarkable man. A true
account of his abilities and virtues need only be placed before the
public attention to secure him a perpetual remembrance among men. It
would be a great wrong,--indeed it would be robbing the world of a just
claim, that his character, writings, and his general history should not
be widely known. As she discoursed on the subject, she became a little
romantic; and when she began to expand her views, and to adopt the
figure of a flower concealed from the gaze of men, lying buried in the
dark recesses of the forest, which ought to be brought out before the
common view, I doubted whether the sentence had not been previously
studied. This only proved, of course, her faithfulness to the memory of
her husband; and her desire that I should enter into her sympathies.

She proceeded to say, that she had selected me as his Biographer. If I
complied with her wishes, I would find that I had undertaken a task in
which I would have intense interest, and be stimulated to exertion. She
could tell me of eminent men who had spoken of him in terms of exalted
praise. He had once sent to a distinguished scholar in Germany, a
strange petrifaction; and the learned man had written a long essay, in
which he described it, and made it the basis of remarks on nature in
general, and took occasion to speak of his American correspondent as a
learned man, and one who wrote in magnificent sentences. Indeed, I was
to find no difficulty in collecting the greatest abundance of material
for a memoir. She wished this composition to be prefixed to a large
volume in manuscript which he had prepared for the press some years
before his lamented close of life. The volume was a treatise on
"Fugitive impressions, and enduring mental records."

Now had this proposition been made by a man, I should have declined the
undertaking. In that case law would have appeared as a jealous
master,--its study long, and life very short. But as it was, the lady
had sufficient power to extort a promise that I would devote myself to
the work.

The gratitude of the fair one, was, in itself, no small fee for the
labor which was before me. I felt that it was necessary to arrange with
her, that I could consult with her at all times, as I proceeded with my
work, and that she should hear me read over a page at any time, or even
sentences, if I needed her advice. These proposals satisfied her that I
was about entering on my duty in earnest, and she became so affable, so
pleased with me, that I anticipated that every page of my work would
secure me a pleasant visit.

My first plan was to make a tour to the village which had the honor to
number a few years ago, Dr. Bolton, who was to be so famous by means of
my well-rewarded pen. And I must confess that my arrival at Scrabble
Hill, for such was the name of the place, was attended with
circumstances so very dismal, that my ardor would have been damped, had
not a bright flame sent its warmth, and cheering rays through my mind.

I remembered that my very absence from Newark was a perpetual plea for
me, to the lady whom I sought to serve. And this consoled me, as I drove
along the street of the place. The dwellings were poor. They were more
dismal than houses falling into ruins; for it was evident that they had
been run up as ambitious shells, and never finished. The men went about
with coats out at the elbows, and seemed to drag along languidly to the
blacksmith's shop, or to the inn. The whole place looked as if it had no
thought of better days. My sudden presence, and the appearance of my
horse and gig, promised, as the opened eyes of the gazers assured me,
to exercise the mental faculties of the inhabitants, in the highest
degree of which they were capable.

The inn was no better than the rest of the village. The landlord was one
of the most imperturbable of human beings. I verily believe that his
wife told the truth when she asserted, as I inquired whether he could
not be sent for, to sit with me, tired of my solitude in the evening,
that I need not think of such a thing, for "John Hillers was no company
for nobody." And this remark, I thought, was accompanied with the
suggestion hinted in her manner, that she herself would be a far better
gossip. Her exact adherence to the truth was, I presume, equally
manifested, when I asked as a hungry man, "What have you in the house?"
and she replied, "Not much of anything."

After a wretched meal in a room half heated from a stove in the
adjoining kitchen, and where the fire-place was full of pieces of paper,
and of empty bottles labelled "bitters," I began to reflect on the
nature of my undertaking. The great responsibility devolved on one who
should attempt the biography of so great a man as Doctor Bolton, all at
once assumed a new aspect. My vanity and self-confidence began to ooze
away. These rainbows faded, and a very dull sky was all that was left.

Was I able to do justice to so great an ornament of my native land? The
reputation of a man sometimes depends on the ability of his biographer.
A good memoir is a bright lamp, which guides the eyes of men to works,
otherwise, perhaps, doomed to lie in obscurity forever. And when they
are opened, it throws a gleam on the page, which secures attention, and
elicits admiration. All the civilized world sees its great books in the
light supplied by a few critics. Hence the critical biographer may
enhance all the merit of the author, who is his subject. On the other
hand, if he usher the unknown book before the public, by a dull and weak
narrative, and criticism, men will imagine that he has been selected as
a congenial mind, and will slight even the treatise of a man like Doctor
Bolton.

In the morning the sun began to shine,--for I ought to have said that
when I entered the village I drove through a dull misty rain. I took
heart, and determined to prosecute my researches with ardor. What is to
be done must be done, and let us try and do all things well.

The first person on my list of those who could give me information, was
Mrs. Rachel Peabody. I found her at home. She seemed much surprised and
mystified, when I told her that I was about writing a life of the
doctor,--but not at all astonished that when I sought information, I
should come to her.

The reference to the past excited her mind. For an hour or more she
poured forth her recollections. And gentle reader, my page would present
a strange array of information, could I accurately record the words that
flowed from her lips. Her chief idea of the doctor, was, that he carried
with her help, advice, and warm cabbage leaves, Eliza Jane, Faith Kitty,
and John Potts, of the house of Peabody, through a variety of
unaccountable diseases. Hitherto I had been a creature, hardened at the
cry of little children. Now when I learnt what a sad time they often
had, when their teeth were ready to force their way through the gums, I
am prepared to bear all the noise which they can make, with a patience
that will cause me to be a favorite with every mother.

I must confess that I left the mansion of the Peabodys very much
perplexed, to know what I could weave, of this conversation into my
biography. Had I gleaned a fact, that ought to live in the memory of
men, long after marble monuments shall have crumbled into dust? As I
formed my enduring statue, was I now able to take my chisel into my
hand, and leave its immortal line? I flattered myself that I had a
presentiment, that I should yet discover in this narration, some
evidence of the greatness of the celebrated physician.

And now I was to call on Miss Mary Phelps--a lady of great
respectability--advanced in life--who had spent her years in maiden
meditation fancy free.

Miss Phelps was certainly one of the most homely creatures, on whom my
eyes were ever compelled to rest. If she had qualities of mind and
heart, sufficient to compensate her for her external appearance, she was
indeed an angel within.

But I quickly ascertained, that such a theory was impracticable. Her
temper was, evidently, a torment to those around her. The airs of a
foolish girl had not disappeared from her manner. She even received me
with a ridiculous affectation of shyness, and when she glanced at me her
eyes fell quickly to the ground.

"Madam," said I, "I have been referred to you as to one who could give
me valuable information, for an important work which I have in hand?"

"Oh, sir--" and her looks indicated intolerable disgust, and great
defiance,--"you are one of the folks hired to take the census, and you
want Papistical statements about the ages of people, that ain't as old
as you wish them to be."

"Oh, no--nothing of the kind. I am engaged in writing a life of Doctor
Bolton. As his appointed biographer, I wish to attain all the knowledge
I can concerning him. For this reason I have visited this village, where
he once resided,--such a successful practitioner; and the object of such
universal love and admiration. You have dwelt here a great many years."
Here the lady frowned in a very ominous manner. "That is to say, you
lived here as a child, and continued here until the present maturity of
your powers has been attained. I have therefore to inquire of you,
whether you can give me any information about him--anything that would
throw light on his character. After all it is your gentle sex who retain
the most tender, and lasting impressions of such a man."

Here Miss Phelps' demeanor became a most unaccountable procedure. Her
eyes fell upon the floor. She looked as if she thought, that deep
blushes were on her sallow, sunken cheeks. She became the most wonderful
representation of modesty, sensibility, and embarrassment.

I waited patiently, but there was no response.

"Madam," said I, "unless the friends of the Doctor give me their
assistance, it will be impossible for me to write his life. Think,
madam, what a wrong it would be, that his history should not be known to
the world! Surely you can inform me of some circumstances, which are of
an interesting nature in his history. Can you not recall any events,
which awaken tender sentiments? Did nothing ever occur in your
intercourse with him,--did nothing ever occur between you that was
memorable?"

"There may have been circumstances," she said, "which are of too
delicate a nature to confide to you. There are feelings which one does
not want to speak about to a gentleman, whom one did not know a little
while ago from Adam."

"Indeed, madam, if the Doctor attended you in any illness, whose nature
was such that you would prefer not to speak of it, do not for a moment
suppose that I would trespass on the delicacy of your feelings by any
inquiries. In fact it is enough for you to assure me, in general terms,
that the Doctor was a skilful physician. I would much prefer such
general statements: particularly as my nerves are much unstrung by
hearing of the diseases of some children in this place--for whom he
ministered in the most admirable manner. I need not print your name in
his biography. As to diseases, I do not know the symptoms of those of
the heart--or----"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Ah, then," she said, "you have hit it. The heart! He was a lovely man.
Yes, he was a man that any woman could love." As this was said, her
hands were clasped together.

"I thank you," I replied, "for that information. You had, of course,
ample opportunity to know his character. You have been his intimate
friend." Here the lady gave me another timid, hesitating glance, and
then her eyes sought the abiding place on the floor.

"Indeed I do not wish you to speak of anything which is unpleasant to
you. If your admiration of the Doctor is so great, all that you could
tell me, would be in his favor. Out of your recollections, you can
suggest anything that you deem proper."

"You have heard about him, and me?"

"I have been told that you were intimate with him. That you could give
me information about him. Whatever tender memories I may awaken, do not
allow me to distress you."

Here she put up a marvelously big handkerchief to her eyes. Dear me, I
thought, at least she had a tender heart.

"If, madam, you have lost a dear friend, whom the Doctor attended in his
last illness--but excuse me,--I regret that I trouble you, that I awaken
sorrowful recollections."

"You have never, then, heard of my history?"

"No, madam."

"The Doctor was a great loss to me." The utterance was distinct, in
defiance of the huge handkerchief.

"Were you in ill health at the time of his death?"

"I enjoyed very bad health--and he attended me--like--like----"

"A brother?"

"No brother could be so affectionate. Oh how often we sat together in
this very room! Our hearts have been so full, that we were silent for
half an hour together."

"The Doctor was very much attached to his last wife, was he not?"

"He married her after he was disappointed in another object of his
affections. But it was not my fault. Things will cross one another
sometimes, and make all go wrong. He said, when he gave me a bill one
day,--that I was necessary to his existence. I shall never forget it. He
did marry that girl--far too young for him. But I didn't blame him. I
will not say any more. My feelings oppress me."

Suddenly, I began to understand, the meaning of this mysterious
conversation. You will say I was excessively stupid not to perceive it
before; that the hints were almost as intolerable and palpable as the
most excessive hint ever given--that of Desdemona to the Moor of Venice.
But you will please to remember, that you had not the personal
appearance before you, which was in the room with me.

After I left this informant, I sat down on the rail of a small bridge,
and then made a memorandum, of which you shall hear in due season.

I was told, in one of my "searches for truths," that if I would only
write to Mr. Bob Warren, of Hardrun, I could acquire important knowledge
of the nature which I so eagerly coveted. Accordingly, I addressed to
him a very polite letter, and begged his aid--as I was collecting
materials for the life of a celebrated Physician--Dr. Bolton, of
Scrabble-Hill.

Only a short time elapsed before I received a reply, and to the
following effect:

     "ROBERT LORING, Esq.,--_Dear Sir_:

     "About the doctor. I did know him. That is to say, I used to meet
     him scattered about the country, though I never called him in for
     professional services. In fact I believe my mother-in-law has more
     judgment about common ailments, than half the doctors around the
     world; and, thanks to a kind Providence, we have had wonderful
     health in the family.

     "You want to hear about his personal appearance. He was a short
     thick-set man, with rather a reddish summit, and a sort of an
     in-pressed nose, and his skin always so tight that it seemed as if
     no more ever could get into it. As to his manners, he was slow,
     awful slow; slow in taking in ideas, like in mind in this respect,
     to snow melting on a March day. He did not say much, and so people,
     after the common ignorant notion about such folks, thought that as
     not much came out of him, there must be a great deal left in him.
     He would often repeat what others said, only putting the things
     into bigger words, and rolling them out so that people did not
     know their own observations.

     "You ask me if I remember any observations of his. The most
     sensible remarks he ever made were some scornful attacks on Tom
     Jefferson's gun-boats, just before election; but I cannot say what
     they were, being very busy in hunting up voters at the time.

     "I hope the doctor was no relation of yours. I write under that
     impression. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but I must say
     I am in a quandary, when I learn that you propose to print a book
     about him. I hope I shall know when it is printed.

     "As to asking my associates here, as you say, about the man, there
     is no use in it. I am perfectly willing to do anything to oblige
     you, or any one else. But I know what they would say--that he was a
     stupid, solemn old ass.

     "I think the creature was honest enough. As to not being over
     blessed with smartness, it was not his fault; for all cannot have
     much brains; for if they had, what would the world be, where it
     seems to me evident that the great majority must be blessed with
     but little common sense, or the country would never get along? It
     is always evident to me, that a small part of the world must do the
     thinking.

     "Poor fellow! I have nothing to say against the doctor. He was
     honest enough. He was good-natured, and could forgive an injury,
     and that I take it is a pretty good proof that his religion will be
     found worth more at last than that of a good many people who think
     themselves better than ever he thought himself. In fact, if I have
     said anything about him that is not to his credit, I am not much
     used to writing; and then the idea of having his life written,
     rather turned my ideas into confusion. I can't go through the work
     of writing a new letter. He never hurt any one, I believe, by his
     practice. His being slow kept him from giving as much medicine as
     he would have done had he been a smarter man.

     "I hope what I write is agreeable and useful.

     "With respect,

     "Yours to command,

     "ROBERT WARREN.

     "P.S.--I will say that the doctor was ready to do a good turn. He
     was not hard on the poor. I believe I said he was honest, and had a
     good temper. It was a very good temper. He was honest as the
     sun--so people said, and in this instance it was true. He was not
     for experiments, as that Dr. Stone at the Run, who was always
     restless as if at some deep game, or like Dr. Thomas, at our place,
     who tried his new-fashioned medicines on rabbits, so that at least
     it was not an imposition on human nature. The doctor practiced in
     the good old way, and for that he has my respect."

I have now given you a pretty clear idea of the valuable results of my
historical labors at the village. With my notes collected with so much
care, I turned my back on this place, and returned to my office at
Newark.

And now what was to be done? I began to feel quite feverish and
miserable. Then I asked myself the question, whether all histories, and
a considerable number of our biographies, were not based on similar
poverty of materials--were not paste-board edifices looking like stone,
and having only chaff for a foundation?

Now came a great temptation.--Should I imitate certain authors who, by
means of cunning sentences, made the trifling appear to be events which
were all-important, and so transformed ideas, that the mean became an
object of admiration?

I recalled an instance when an historian found a record of a man whom he
desired to clothe in all possibility of royal purple, and so to find
fame with his sect, or to gain applause as a gorgeous writer. The true
narrative declared, "At this time he believed that he received from
heaven a divine intimation, a light from above, assuring him that a man
might go through all the instruction of the Colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge, and not be able to tell a man how to save his soul."

Now, this plain statement, however translated into the dignity of an
ambitious style, would not appear to advantage in a brilliant eulogy.
The man was fanatical, and crazy. But the design was to represent him as
a philosophical reformer in the religious world.

And now behold the power of art. In the original document there is a sad
poverty, and deformity of flesh and bones. The poor creature must appear
on the stage in kingly robes. Hear our model!--Behold the
transformation! "At this time he was convinced that he received a divine
illumination, infusing such thoughts as transcend the most elevated
conceptions of mere human wisdom; and he was overwhelmed with the depth
of the conviction, that a man might pass through all the extent of
scholastic learning taught at Oxford and Cambridge, and not be able to
solve the great problem of human existence."

Was there ever such alchemy? If I could attain a moderate degree of
efficiency, as the pupil of such a writer, the small items of
information collected at the village, could become a grand biography.

Let me see, thought I, what I can make of my material. I do not know
that I could dare to publish words which would make a false impression.
But let me try my skill in this essay to transmute poor substances into
gold. I take the note concerning the visit to Mrs. Rachel Peabody,--and
the account she gave me of the sicknesses of Eliza Jane, Faith Kitty,
and John Potts.

"One of the most impressive views of the doctor, was his appearance
among the young, when the sickness which does not spare our race in the
days of our early development, was bearing its distress to the languid
frame, and sorrow to the affectionate relatives who watched by the
bed-side. I do not mean to say that this illustrious physician was less
skilful in dealing with the maladies of middle life, or with those which
we deplore in the aged,--whose sun we would have to sink in all the
tranquillity of a serene sky. It is the consequence of maternal love,
that in this village where his great talents were so unfortunately
circumscribed, you may still hear the most touching descriptions of his
skill and tenderness by the cradle, and by the couch of those children,
the future promise of our country, who would attend on the instructions
of the academy, were it not that their condition has become one, where
obscure causes prove to us the limitation of our finite capacities."

Let me now try my hand on the letter of Mr. Warren.

Note,--"The doctor was a solemn ass." Biographical representation.
"Suspicion might arise with respect to the extent of the intellectual
power of the doctor, if the biographer led the reader to suppose that
all who knew him, in his retreat from the great circles where the
understanding is cultivated to its highest degree, regarded him as a man
of transcendent genius. The slow process of thought, often observable in
men whose deductions reach the greatest altitude, like the great tree
slowly evolved from its incipient stem, is a contradiction to the
conceptions, which the vulgar form of the intellectual power of men of
acute minds. They anticipate the sudden flashing of the eagle eye, and
the flight of thought as with the eagle wing. And when they are doomed
to disappointment, and meet with that seemingly sluggish action of the
mind, which has learned caution, lest elements that should enter into
the decision that is sought, should not be observed, it is an error at
which a philosophical mind can afford a smile, to find that their
unauthorized disgust, will seek a similitude for the great man of such
tardy conclusions, in some animal that is proverbial for the dulness of
its perceptions."

Note,--"Supposed to be wise, because he was solemn and stupid."
Biographical representation. "It is curious to observe that when
contemporary testimony is elicited, concerning the powers of a superior
man, you discover, amid unavoidable abuse and misrepresentation,
unintentional testimony to his exalted qualities. While an attempt is
made to undermine his claim to wisdom, it will incidentally appear that
wisdom was ascribed to him. The endeavor of envy which would ostracise
him, is a proof that it is excited by common admiration heaped upon its
object."

Note,--The old lady who intimated that there had been "love passages
between herself and the Doctor"--Biographical representation.

"It is delightful to know that a man of such science, and constant
observation, was not rude, or wanting in those gentle traits which
allure the susceptibilities of the best portion of our race. I might
narrate a romantic incident, which would prove how he had
unintentionally inspired an affection in a lovely lady, which endured in
the most singular extent, even to old age. I have witnessed her tears at
the mention of his name. On the most ample scrutiny, I repose, when I
say, that the Doctor had never trifled with this sincere love. The sense
of devoted affection in this case, led the victim of a tender delusion
to infer, that on his part, the regard was reciprocated. I can imagine
the sorrow of his great heart, if he discovered the unfortunate error
and misplaced passion. In the case to which I now refer, I could only
judge of the beauty and attractions of the early youth, by those remains
of little arts and graceful attitudes, which are the result, so
generally, of a consciousness of a beauty that is confessed by all."

Then too I could avail myself of the ingenious devices of praise, by a
denial of infirmities.

"In him there was nothing for effect--nothing that was
theatrical--nothing done to cause the vulgar to stare with astonishment.
No pompous equipage, no hurried drives, no sudden summons from the
dwellings of his friends, as if patients required his sudden
attendance--no turgid denomination of little objects by words of
thundering sound--no ordering the simple placing of the feet in hot
water, as Pediluvium,--none of those arts were employed by the subject
of our Biography, to acquire or extend his practice, or build up his
great fame."

I also found some of the letters of the Doctor. Let me attempt the work
of Alchemy again. Let me transform some passage into the proper language
of Modern Biography.

Thus I find this sentence in a letter to Colonel Tupp: "Some of our
negroes in New Jersey are very troublesome, and some wise plan should be
devised lest they become a heavy burden----"

"It would appear"--thus should it be erected into Biographical
effect--"that the Doctor, to be named always with so much veneration,
was probably one of the first of our men of giant minds, to foresee the
dangers of the problem involved in the existence of the African race, in
the new world. I claim him--on the evidence of his familiar epistolary
correspondence--as the originator of the great movements of statesmen
and philosophers, for its solution. He gave, beyond all contradiction,
that impulse to the energetic thought, which has led to all the plans
for the elevation of those, who bear 'God's image cut in ebony.' As we
trace the voice to the distant fountain--or the immense circle of fire
on our prairies, to the sparks elicited by the careless traveler from
the small flint, so as I recall the present innumerable discussions on
this sable subject, I refer them all to the unpretending utterances of
this great man. I recur to the small village where he dwelt. His study,
his favorite retreat, is before me. There, at the table, illuminated as
it were with his manuscript, I see his impressive form. Near him are the
pestle and mortar; the various jars on which are labels in such unknown
words, that the country people regard them as if they were the
ingredients for the sorcerer,--his coat,--his books,--his
minerals,--such are his surroundings.

"There in that study--he first in the unostentatious effusions of a
private letter, suggests the seed of those convictions, which led to the
formation of the Colonization Society. No fanaticism, however, has
marked and disfigured the stately forms of his thoughts, on the subject
of the extinction of slavery. Let not the readers of this Biography at
the Sunny South, imagine that he designed an interference with their
possessions. There is evidence of the perfect balance of his mind on
this subject, in the fact, that he designates them, in another letter,
written probably after this one, which contains the immortal sentence,
in which he employs a word, which in printed syllables, with the
exception of one repeated letter in the English, resembles the Roman
adjective for Black,--but whose pronunciation rejected the classical
usage.

"I am aware that those who love his memory will be compelled to do
battle for the honors which they justly claim for these and other
anticipations of later movements in the world of wisdom and
philanthropy. As Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, only to
have his claim a subject of dispute, so our great Philosopher will find
those to detract from his merits, and maintain that the great efforts to
which we have alluded were of later origination."

While I speak upon this subject of the African discussion, I may remark
that there is a singular discovery which I have made, as I have searched
his papers, and concerning which I am in doubt, whether it should be
delegated to oblivion or made the subject of ingenuous confession. I am
aware that obscurity throws its shadow over the topic. I am also aware
that I may hereby cast a suspicion of the spirit of a wild projector,
over the subject of this memoir. I think, however, and believe that I do
not flatter myself unjustly, that I have guarded against such a wrong
by the delineation I have given of his calm and reflecting character.

The circumstances which my pen is somewhat reluctant to trace for fear
of misapprehension, are these: I find in a letter to a friend the
remark, "You would be no less startled by the assertion, that I could
transform the African into a white man, than to learn from me that my
Caesar has become sedulous in the discharge of his duties, and ceased to
slumber by the kitchen fire when he should be at his work at the
wood-shed."

Now observe this ominous suggestion about the transformation of the
physical characteristics of those who have been translated among us from
the land of sandy deserts. Here is a hint of the physical transformation
of a black man into a white. And then I must add that I find two small
pieces of paper lying near the letter, which seem to corroborate my
view, which papers, I candidly confess,--here is the ground of
hesitation, the momentum which disturbs the mind seemingly on the eve of
its rest, might indeed have been prescriptions saved by accident, or
have been hints on the subject of the transformation of the race of
darkened skins. One of these fragments contains the words, "Elixir to
remove the dark pigment which causes the surface discrimination"--on the
other, "For the removal of odorous accidentals." I am willing to leave
the subject to the consideration of my readers.

Then again I have known a man who had no brilliant or striking
qualities, exalted into one of most honorable fame,--in this wise,--

"The doctor perhaps had no one gift of intellectual power which exalted
him above other men. But look to the faculties which he possessed in
admirable combination; regard him in the complete symmetry of his mind,"
etc. etc.

Thus I amused myself by this imitation of the system of eulogistic
biographies. But I must confess that I had returned to my home oppressed
with a feverish anxiety, as of one who felt that he had become involved
in a hopeless undertaking. How utterly absurd the position which I
occupied! How silly had I been in taking the assurance of Mrs. Bolton
for certain truth, and acting on the principle, that her husband was a
great man in his day. I now began to regard the deceased as one of the
most stupid creatures that had ever felt a pulse.

But then I had acquired the most morbid fear of meeting the widow. What
excuse should I offer for a change of purpose? I have no doubt that my
exposure and miserable life when at the village, seeking pearls and
finding chaff, had produced a temporary derangement of my system, and
that I had contracted some low fever.

Nothing else could account for the manner in which I was tormented by my
position. What could be more easy than to say that I found myself unable
to gather material for the life of the Great--I was about to say, old
fool! Somehow I was spell-bound. I could not reason calmly on the
subject. It broke my rest at night. It haunted me during the day. I now
perceive, that I ought to have sought the advice of my physician. But
then, common sense seemed to have deserted me on this one point. I was
nervous, wretched, for so unreasonable a reason, and could not find
relief. One night I dreamed that the widow and the doctor were both
intent on murdering me. There she stood near me, the picture of wrath,
and urging him, as a second Lady Macbeth, to destroy me. He advanced and
raised his abominable pestle above his head. He smiled, proving how a
man may smile and be a villain, and procrastinated the deadly blow to
torment me. Fortunately I saw projecting from one of his huge pockets a
large bottle of some specific which he had concocted for a patient.
Springing up, I seized the vial, and grasping him by the collar, was
pouring it down his throat, saying, you infamous old murderer die of
your own medicine, when a chair, near my bed, thrown violently half
across the room by my impetuosity, awoke me.

But every knock at my door tormented me. Every letter was examined with
terror,--lest I should recognize a hand calling me to account.

I found my way about Newark through unfrequented streets, and across the
lots when it was practicable. Even when I went to the court-house, on
business, I left my office, not by the door, but through a small back
window, and by sundry winding ways reached my destination.

After this plan had been pursued for some time, I was duly honored by
the following note.

     "SIR:--You are not to think that your designs are unknown. Your
     singular conduct in passing by my house so often,--a house so
     removed from the streets through which you would naturally
     pass,--could not fail to be observed by any man who had an eye in
     his head, and who regarded his rights. I am not alone in this
     observation of your proceedings. We have taken into consideration
     your stealthy look as you passed, and have noticed how you watched
     at the corners, lest any one should see you.

     "Depend upon it your designs are known. The villany is detected.
     You are a hypocrite of the deepest dye. Unless you entirely, and
     immediately, relinquish your pursuit, you will suffer in a manner
     you little apprehend.

     "Do not prowl in this mean way around my premises any more. Strive
     to retrieve your character. I hope the day may come when I can
     honor you as I now despise you.

     "WARNING."

About the same time I received this additional note.

     "DEAR BOB:--I heard the other day that you had returned home, and I
     have been eager to see you. They tell me that you have fallen
     desperately in love with a certain widow, and that you have been up
     the country, under pretence of partridge shooting, in order that
     you might inquire about her property. Are the inquiries
     satisfactory? Are the acres and dwellings such, that on your
     return, she appears to be angelic? Or, being disappointed as to the
     properties left her by her father, and the old doctor, is she but a
     woman of ordinary charms? Oh Bob! I never thought you so mercenary.
     I thought that you would follow my example, and despise all but the
     real excellencies which can adorn a wife.

     "Had it not been that I am lame, I should have been to see you,--as
     it is desirable that we should meet soon.

     "Now I think of it, there is another foolish report about
     you,--that you go to the court-house by the back street, in
     consequence of your having heard that that scape-grace, Bill
     Turney, whom you lashed so terribly in your address before the
     squire, when Obadiah Potter was arrested for beating his wife,
     intended to pummel you as soon as he caught you. They say also that
     he describes his belligerent intentions in very graphic language,
     to wit, that he will, 'shoot through you, like lightning through a
     gooseberry bush.' These stories will amuse you.

     "Stop and see me the first time you come along the main street in a
     bold manner.

     "Your friend,

     "J. WALTERS."

These annoyances had at least a good effect. I resolved that I would see
the widow, and throwing off my nervous anxiety, explain to her that I
could not possibly find materials sufficient for a biography. I intended
also to suggest, that a physician might be better qualified for the
undertaking.

Hence I gladly accepted the invitation of a fair cousin of mine, to be
one of her guests for an evening party; where I felt confident that I
should meet the widow.

It had now been several weeks since I had been thrown into the society
of ladies. My health was improved. The nervous fever that had agitated
me, had passed away. The fascination of one whom I had sometimes met in
our village gatherings, seemed to be restoring me to myself.

After a while, my companion looking across the room, said to me, "How
well our widow looks this evening."

I thought that there was a mischievous look in her laughing eye. But
sure enough--there stood the Empress, who had commanded the biography.
She was resting her hand upon a piano, and in deep conversation with
Judge Plian.

I crossed the room and spoke to her. She received me politely--but not
as one who had the slightest recollection, that there was any tie of the
most profound interest between us. Surely a man writing her deceased
husband's biography, should have immediately become her chief object of
attention. On the contrary, after a few common-place words, she turned
to the Judge, and became absorbed in his conversation.

And this was the more remarkable, because the man was by no means
good-looking. Nay, I think him rather insignificant. I had a few words
with him on the occasion of the trial of that miserable creature, who
would get himself hung, and I concluded, not only that he was not well
versed in legal learning, but that he was a remarkably stubborn man,
riveted to his opinions, even when, by means of lucid argument, you
proved him to be in error.

A short time afterwards I entered into conversation with my fair
cousin. She directed me to look at the two, near the piano.

"They will make a good-looking couple, will they not?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, have you not heard of their engagement?"

"Engagement!"

"Yes, it has been a short acquaintance. Indeed, Bob, now that it recurs
to my mind, I heard that she sent you out of the way, into the country
on business, that the Judge might not be alarmed by the appearance of a
rival. But you know that villagers are famous for gossip. Of course
there was nothing in it. And I said, you never had a serious thought
about her."

Was ever anything like this? Before the shoes were old with which she
followed my poor father's body. While the Biography of her deceased
husband was in progress, she forms an engagement with a man of no sort
of personal attractions, and who, being on the bench, can have his legal
decisions confuted by a young lawyer.

Surely the most strict moralist would confess, that I was released from
my engagements! Surely Sir Charles Grandison would have said, that I
need not put myself forward for an explanation with the widow. If she
spoke to me on the subject, could I not say, "Let the Judge write the
book?"

These notes have not been written in vain, if I can contribute, in the
least degree, to the awakening of the public mind to a demand for
greater moral principles, in the composition of histories, and of the
memoirs of distinguished men.

I thought that the widow might send me a note, before many days had
passed. I waited, and concluded in a Christian spirit, that if she
applied to me, she should have the notes which I had accumulated. But I
never heard again of my first attempt at writing a memoir. I never heard
again of Dr. Bolton's Biography.




IV.

_KATYDIDS:--A NEW CHAPTER IN NATURAL HISTORY._


    John Jones, a man who said he hated strife,
    Had from the altar led an able wife.
    No lines told scandal on a wrinkled brow;
    Temper and Time are rivals with their plow.
    Some said that she was gentle as the May;
    That Jones, the dog, was now to have his day.

    Your pardon, men, I pray you now dispense,
    If I proclaim you void of common sense,
    When you would have your wives to know no will,
    To have no thought but such as you instill;
    To be your shadows, never to suggest,
    Each judgment crossing yours at once represt;
    And to suppose, that every chiding word
    Shall from your bearded lips alone be heard.

    If no resistance met us in our home,
    What petty tyrants would all men become?
    The little wits that most of men possess,
    For want of sharp'ning would become far less;
    The selfish streams that flow from out our will,
    So far corrupted be more stagnant still:
    And restless, we should wage an inward war,
    But for the soothing rays of home's true star.
    Oh, let this wrong abuse of women end,
    In me, at least, they'll find a sturdy friend.
    I give my witness, I who have been thrown,
    Widely with all in Country and in Town,
    Women are best of all our fallen race,
    Richer in heart, than e'en in outward grace,
    And if our homes are not the abodes of peace,
    The fault is ours; and the complaint should cease.

    In that small dwelling there--from morn to night,
    A woman toils, withdrawn from human sight;
    A plain poor woman, in a common dress,
    Of kindly tones, and of uncouth address.

    Just wend thy way unto the little brook,
    Day after day upon its waters look,
    See every day the self-same ripples there,
    On those same stones, for ages smooth and bare.

    So she from day to day the course of life,
    Finds one recurring call of labor's strife,
    Save when God's blessed day of rest hath come,
    And its sun shines, as in the church, at home.
    Unlike the stream she has no murmuring tone,
    She has God's will to do, and it is done.

    With tender care she trains her youthful band,
    And never wearies in her heart or hand;
    Is ready, when the music in her ear,
    From one loved step, proclaims her husband near,
    To spread the frugal board, the welcome give,
    In each act say, for self I do not live.
    Oh man, o'erlook thy wife's unceasing care
    How her dear love doth follow everywhere,
    Forget her, as she stood beside thy bed,
    When the long sickness bowed thy weary head,
    Watching,--to her all sacrifice as light,
    As 'tis to stars to watch o'er earth at night.

    Ah 'tis most noble, manly, not to know
    How light o'er all doth from her presence flow,
    And when a quicker word in haste doth fall,
    To speak of her, as if strife was her all.
    What could she say, if she replied to thee,
    Told to the world her secret misery,
    Showed the sad wounds that thy neglect had wrought,
    Where but a look the healing balm had brought.

    One, at this hour, lies on the bed of death,
    A neighbor lovely as the morning's breath.
    Slowly she dies,--and with prophetic eye
    Tracing the course of human destiny,
    I see a home she brightened, hence so lone,
    Its calm day darkened, and its music gone;

    The young, the old with anxious cares opprest,
    Their hearts, like shadows feeling for their rest
    On the green sward, where flickering sunbeams glide,
    My tears can fall, and standing by thy side,
    I know a woman's place, a woman's worth,--
    I know the gift of God in her to earth.

    Thou will not let thy wife become to thee,
    That which her nature claims that she should be.
    Thou hast a cold dead life from her apart,
    Thou art not moulded by her gentler heart,
    Else by her sweet, pure thoughts thou wert more true
    More wise, more bold each noble deed to do.

    Of woman's weakness dost thou speak? Thou'lt find
    Her strength indeed, by this just bond of mind.
    You are the weak one, cannot grasp her might,
    Forever boasting that thy wrong is right.

    Without her soul to thine, the page is dull
    Of all life's work,--and with this it is full
    Of all illumined splendors, as of old,
    The precious writings were adorned with Gold.

    Ah view that cell so dark!--the felon there,
    With glaring eye that speaks his vast despair.
    He once in princely splendor lived his day,
    Lord of the street, a monarch in his way.
    His costly revels gained an envied fame,
    Where shallow fops, and women like them came.
    Oh man! how couldst thou thus thy God defy?
    Could riches pay thee for thy long-told lie?

    If thou hadst said thy secret to thy wife,
    Made known to her the secret guilty strife,
    Told of the awful chance, the business dice,
    The gambling sales, the shameful, well-named vice,
    Asked what to risk, asked what a man should do,
    Would that shame-darkened cell have been for you?

    She would have said, in woman's faith so strong,
    "We may be poor,--we never will do wrong.
    Take all this splendor; let it fade away,
    But stand thou honest as the open day."
    Would she have been to thee a feeble stay?

    We make the woman weak where she is weak;
    We school her feeble; feebleness we seek.
    We make believe that life is pompous pride,
    That she is blest, by gold when gratified,
    This my conclusion, as the world we scan,
    What's wrong in woman tells of wrong in man.

    But where is Jones? While I have thus digressed,
    Why Jones, poor fellow, is by care oppressed.
    He draws his trail of briars round life's ring,
    And wonders he is caught by everything.
    Jones snaps at every woman, man, and child,
    Just as a turtle by hot coals made wild.

    Jones had a daughter, and her name was Kate,
    As like her sire as pewter plate to plate.
    And they together almost vexed to death,
    The wife, the target of their arrowed breath.

    Sometimes the patient creature's anger rose
    Their petty wrongs, and malice to oppose.
    And tempers such as hers, men do not try
    By single deeds that cause some misery;
    Stirred at the last by injuries borne so long,
    Their anger speaks accumulated wrong.

    Kate had her beauty, and her household skill,
    And in due time her Jack had found his Gill,
    He was a man as meek as man could be,
    And could not dream of woman's tyranny.
    He was a pleasant man to smile "good day,"
    And had the art to say what others say;
    Thought his old saws came from a welling-spring
    In his own mind--not knowing he did bring
    All that so softly from his lips e'er fell,
    As vapid water from his neighbor's well--
    The poor dog never stole a good-sized bone,
    And so the world of curs let him alone.

    Not to an infant could Kate gentle be,
    As to a creature, meek and kind as he.
    How could she tear the vine that round her grew,
    Ready to fall with every wind that blew.
    The wife made battle for him with his friends;
    And fighting them, she thus made good amends
    For all her patience with him. Thus with care
    She spread her shield, and said, attack, who dare.
    Strange, how 'mid peace we make the show of war,
    And shout unto the battle from afar,
    And her defense at last such habit wrought
    Had she assailed him, she herself had fought.

    In time, ill-temper wrought upon her mind,
    And illness, too, its miseries combined.
    Oh! sad to read of intellect o'erthrown!
    Sometimes all blank. Sometimes one train alone
    Of thought, declares that reason is denied.
    We hear of one who said, I must abide
    Behind the door, because I am a clock.
    And there he stood, and ticked. And one was shocked
    To feel a rat within his stomach run.
    The doctor heard: the story being done,
    He wisely smiled, and said, "I soon can cure.
    You need not be a rat-trap long I'm sure."
    "Why how, O doctor, can you reach the rat?"
    "'Tis easy: down your throat I'll send a cat."
    The man at such a pill must need rebel.
    And with good sense he quietly got well.

    Kate had her fancies--said she soon would die,
    And wasting seemed to prove her prophecy.
    "Poor Will," she said, "you soon my loss will mourn,
    The wife who shielded you from many a thorn;
    I'm glad the pigs are killed, the sweet-meats made,
    Our turnips gathered, and our butcher paid.
    I'm glad I sent away to Jericho,
    That lazy Bess, that tried my temper so.
    I'm glad I told my mind to Jane Agree,
    About that scandal that she said of me:
    That I was jealous, to my apron string
    Tied you--distrustful of my marriage ring.
    I'm glad I told her that it was a lie,
    And somewhat sorry, since it made her cry.

    "And, Oh! poor Will--so helpless when alone,
    What wilt thou do, dear one, when I am gone?
    How would I love, a spirit round thy way,
    To move, and be thy blessing every day!
    To fan thy forehead, and to dry thy tears,
    To nerve thy soul, and banish all thy fears.
    All I can do for thee, thou patient one,
    So gentle, tender, loving, all is done.
    I feel so lonely, in thy loneliness.
    This is, in death, my very great distress.
    Some one will fill my place, ere long, I trow,
    Your clothes are whole--in perfect order now.
    Be sure you get a wife that is like me,
    In gentle temper, and sweet sympathy.
    For you, so long to gentleness allied,
    Could not a bristling woman, sure, abide."

    Poor Will! At first his tears fell down like rain
    Most at the time when she inflicted pain,
    By her unkind surmise, that he would take
    Another wife--did she the world forsake.

    "You are a wife," he said, "so fond, so true,
    I cannot have another--none but you.
    You made me what I am the people say;
    Another wife might make me; what I pray?
    An eight-day clock, they say, I am most like,
    Wound up by you, and by you taught to strike.
    Another wife might keep the time too late,
    Take out the wheels, and snatch away each weight:
    And I, neglected, come to a dead stop,
    Like some old time-piece in a lumber shop.
    But if you think, dear wife, that I must wed,
    When you, at last, are numbered with the dead,
    As I depend upon your good advice,
    Choose you the bride. Shall it be Susan Price?"

    Never had Bill so great a blunder made;
    Never had demon so his cause betrayed.
    Changed in her view--a villain lost to shame--
    She scarced believed that he could bear his name.

    She saw the future. Susan Price was there.
    With hazel eyes, and curls of Auburn hair.
    The rooms she swept would that vile Susan sweep?
    The cup-board key would that bad Susan keep?
    With those same pans would Susan cook their food,
    For that fool Bill, and for some foolish brood?
    Would Susan drink the wine that she had made?
    Would all those pickles be to her betrayed?
    "Shall that vain thing sit there,--a pretty pass!
    Neglecting work, to simper in that glass?
    Will she cut down that silk frock, good, though old,
    And puff it out with pride in every fold?
    And of all other insults, this the worst,--
    My beating heart is ready here to burst--
    She'll use my blue-edged china,--yes she will--
    Oh! I could throw it piece by piece at Bill.

    "I see her, proud to occupy my chair,
    To pour out tea, to smile around her there,
    While my false friends will praise her half-baked cake,
    And Bill will chuckle o'er each piece they take.
    And while his grief is lettered o'er my grave,
    He'll laugh, and eat, and show himself a knave."

    Hast thou on some huge cliff, with oaks around,
    Heard the full terror of the thunder sound?
    Hast thou at sea, all breathless heard the blast
    Rolling vast waves on high whene'er it past?
    Then mayst thou form some thought of her dread ire
    Poured on the man to burn his soul like fire.

    But soon the burst of anger all was o'er,--
    And softened, she could speak of death once more.
    "And Susan Price can marry whom she will,
    And,"--so she argued, "will not marry Bill."
    One day she said,--"It is revealed to me
    That ere I die, a warning there shall be."
    Will looked, and saw her mind now wandered more,
    As thus she spake, than it had done before.

    "Yes," she exclaimed, "before I leave this scene,
    Death will appear,--the warning intervene.
    Death will appear in this our quiet home--
    A chicken without feathers will he come."

    Fame spreads the great, and fame will spread the small,
    Fame gives us tears,--for laughter it will call.
    Fame spreads this whim,--this foolish crazy fear,--
    The neighbors laughed, and told it far and near.

    There dwelt close by, a restless heedless wight--
    Mischief to him was ever a delight.--
    He heard the story, and his scheme prepared,
    And what his brain had purposed, that he dared.

    He from a rooster all his feathers tore,
    --Had he been learned in the Grecian lore
    Heard of the Cynic, old Diogenes,
    Who, lying in his tub, in dreamy ease,
    Said to the hard-brained conqueror of old time,
    With heedlessness to human wants sublime,
    When he inquired, "What shall for you be done?"
    "All that I ask, hide not from me the sun."
    He might have thought of him; and Plato's scowl,
    When in the school he hurled the unfeathered fowl,
    And said, ere murmuring lips reproof began,
    "There, Plato, is, as you defined, a man."
    But of the Greeks our wight had not a thought.
    Under his arm the fowl, all plucked, was brought,
    And forced to enter into Katy's door:
    Who spied him wandering o'er her sanded floor.

    She looked upon him, and began to weep.
    Bill sat not far off on a chair asleep.

    "And so," she said, "Oh death! and thou art come
    To take my spirit far away from home."
    Then as inspired a sudden hope to trace,
    She waved the unfeathered monster from its place.
    Would drive far off from her the coming ill,--
    "Shoo shoo, thou death, now leave me, go to Bill."

    'Twas overheard--and wide the story spread.
    It reached John Jones, and to his wife he said,
    In precious wrath,--"They slander thus our Kate;
    Some foe devised this in malicious hate;
    And you, perhaps, were one to make the lie."
    Thus deeply stung, she made a fierce reply.

    "She did it, I am sure," replied the wife,
    "She did it, sure as I have breath and life."
    "No--Katy didn't," said the man in rage.
    "Yes, Katy did," she said. And so they wage
    A war of words, like these upon my page.

    The Indian Fairy spirit heard the din,
    And first to patience strove them both to win,
    Sent the cool breeze to fan the burning brow,
    Volcanic fires to die by flakes of snow.
    In war incessant, still the clamor rose,
    Still Katy did, and didn't, and fierce blows.

    At last the spirit took their souls away,
    And in their cottage lay their lifeless clay;
    Their bodies changed--and insects they became--
    Green as the grass--but still their cry the same.

    Hence in all trees, we hear in starry night,
    The contradiction, and the wordy fight.
    We hear John Jones, and his unhappy wife,
    And all their brood forever in a strife:
    And Katy did, and Katy didn't still
    Are sounds incessant as a murmuring rill.




V.

_THE IMAGE-MAKER._


             DWELLER ON EARTH.

    Thou dwellest here, beneath this dome,
    A Pilgrim, far from thine own home.
    Where is thine heart, and where thy land?
    Thou longest for some distant strand.

    We have thy love and gentle care,
    Thou bearest blessings every where.
    Yet day and night, and light and shade
    Shall with less labor one be made,

    Than thou in sympathy be one
    With us, who through our course will run,
    Laden with cares, with pleasures worn,
    Children of hope to sorrow born.

    Thou hast our speech, our garb, our toil,
    Well known, yet stranger on our soil.
    Some deeper hidden life is thine,
    As if we saw the tortuous vine

    'Mid veiling branches intertwine;
    Swinging in air its precious fruit,
    While the deep mould has hid its root;
    From view its highest honors lost,

    'Mid the oak leaves in murmurs tost,
    A secret work thy endless task,
    Thy endless care, of that we ask.


PILGRIM.

    I seek to form an Image here.


DWELLER ON EARTH.

    Thou art a Sculptor! Yet our ear
    Doth catch no sound of chisel stroke,
    No hammer clang--no marble broke.


PILGRIM.

    The silence of Eternity
    Around my work doth ever lie.
    When marbles into dust shall fall,
    And human art no fame befall,

    The sun no more its beams shall give
    To statues seeming half to live,
    Beauty no more on genius wait,
    Which copying seemeth to create;

    When heaven and earth shall pass away,
    When breaketh everlasting day,
    Then shall the Image that I form,
    Appear 'mid nature's dying storm.

    The Image that no human skill
    Could fashion, or Archangel's will;
    No angel mind the model give
    Of that which shall forever live.

    At that great day it shall be known,
    The Image of the Eternal One.




VI.

_THE CLOUDS._


    The clouds that drift, are slowly drawn
    To that glorious sun at dawn.
    Darkened mists, and now so bright,
    Resplendent in the morning light;
    In borrowed glory,--spreading flame,
    God's fiery pillar still they frame.

    So I,--in dark night once astray
    Through boundless grace have found my way,
    To thee,--the Sun of Righteousness,
    Whose wings are healing in distress.

    From thee I trust, the dawning gleam
    Hath made me more than I can seem;
    Hath made me thine, in joy, in tears,
    Thy pardoned one,--one all whose fears

    Are silenced in thy cross-wrung groan,
    Buried beneath thy tomb's vast stone,
    Which angels' hands alone can move.
    Earth has this pure work for their love.

    Oh let thy glory shine on me,
    Armed in thy purest panoply.
    My shield, the Lamb, the cross it bears,
    Let me not weep its stain with tears!
    The gathering waters fill each cloud;
    The mountain's burnished tops they shroud.
    They spread o'er valley, over plain,
    Rich with God's blessings in the rain;
    On good and evil both they fall,
    In the vast care of God for all.

    So Lord, thy servant thus prepare,
    To bear thy mercies everywhere.
    When in the grave mine ashes sleep,
    When o'er it, sad a friend may weep,

    Thou wilt not suffer it be said,--
    His life was scarce accredited
    By Him who sits upon the throne,--
    By Him who bore our sins alone,
    Who wills our holy walk on earth,
    As sons of God, of heavenly birth,
    Who will have none disciples here
    Unless their cross with zeal they bear.

    Life without Christ! That is but death.
    Prayer without Christ!--but idle breath:
    And love for man, but vanity
    Save at the cross 'tis learnt by me.
    Oh help thy branch, thou heavenly Vine.
    Union with thee is life divine,
    And clustered fruits are ever mine,

    If from beneath alone we gaze,
    Thy providence a darkened maze.
    Rise on wings of faith and prayer,
    And then what love and wisdom there!
    So brightness of unbroken day
    Upon those clouds doth heavenward lay
    Though we can trace no single ray,
    Who look from earth. Yet angels see
    The glory as a silver sea.




VII.

_THE PROTECTOR DYING._


    Dread hour! nearing, nearing fast.
    Yet I cannot wish thee past.
    Death! Oh! but a dream till nigh,
    With night cold from eternity.

    That cold night doth around me creep
    In which immortals never sleep.

    The cloud its mighty shade doth fling,
    Like a mantle for a king,
    On the mountain's awful form,
    Scarred through battles with the storm.

    So thy darkness falls on me,
    Darkness, such as cannot be,
    But to those whose soul is life,
    To a nation in its strife,
    That its wrongs for ever crushed,
    The cries of slaves forever hushed,
    And every chain forever gone,
    Man tremble before God alone;
    That man's true right, so long betrayed,
    On truth and justice shall be laid;
    That Freedom's martyr's work begun
    In blood, and fire, and hidden sun,
    Shall culminate in triumphs won;
    And the world's changing channels trace
    A course of hope for all our race.

    Oh! how they as the humblest die,
    Who part from kingly majesty
    To stand before Him!--nothing there
    But as His image we may bear;
    The image by the humblest borne;
    The kings of the eternal morn.

    The lowliest man, most void of power,
    To stand the trial of that hour!
    To come from life in quiet shade,
    From humble duties well obeyed.

    Ah! if this be a solemn thing,
    What then for one in might a king!
    To meet the trial of that day
    From gorgeous wrongs in false array,
    Where false praise gilds the every deed,
    Where few warn one that will not heed;
    The man whom Weird-like hands have shown
    The weary pathway to the throne.

    Oh! thou gory-crowned head
    Haunting here my dying bed!
    Was it not necessity?
    Moulding deed that was to be!
    Oh! king so false--away--away--
    Leave me at least my dying day.

    Is there no refuge? Hated face!
    Come with the looks of thy cold race.
    Look thou as when thy soiled hand gave
    The Earl, thy vassal to the grave.
    Gaze thou on me in that worst pride
    As kingly honor was defied.
    Look thus on me--but not as now,
    That patient sorrow on thy brow.

    I can but gaze. Forever near
    Thy dreaded form is my one fear.

    A boy, I sit by running stream,
    The humble life my daily dream:
    Some lowly good--some wrongs redrest,
    A noiseless life, its peaceful rest.
    As that stream calm my life shall be;
    As placid in its purity.
    The humble stone shall tell the tale
    When life began--when strength did fail.
    An humble race shall bear my name
    Blest by a few not rich in fame.
    Oh! king, thine eye! It says, but then
    Thy hand had not the guilty stain.

    Hark! how the marriage-bells are ringing!
    Voices fill the air with singing.
    Waves of light are now the beating
    Of my heart, and the repeating
    Seems no weariness of pleasure,
    Only increase of its treasure.
    Ah! dear wife! thy look hath sped
    Many a sorrow. But this head!
    E'en at the hearth, and by thy side
    This kingly blood-stained form doth glide.
    The quiet house of God,--the prayer
    Rising as incense in the air.
    I breathe the still and mighty power,
    I catch the glory of the hour.
    Am I not pure, and armed for strife
    With England for her better life?
    Thou gory head! my prophecy,
    In that loved church told not of thee.

    Look as if heaven changed thy face,
    Let pardon there at last have place:
    Before me, on this awful sea,
    Some gleam of heaven reflected be.




VIII.

_THE INDIAN DREAM-CELL._


In Pearl-run valley, not far from the noise and crowded streets of our
great Metropolis, the original forests, and a few unsightly rural
dwellings, have given place to a large number of those pleasant homes,
which citizens of wealth or of comfortable means, have erected for their
summer abodes. Hence the hills around are dotted with costly mansions,
and unpretending cottages.

It is a sight inspiring happiness to look on these dwellings in the
spring. You have evidence that so many families, released from the city
are rejoicing in the pure invigorating air, in the sunshine and shadows,
in the rooms associated with so much ease and tranquility.

Can it be that any one can be found who is void of all sympathy with the
natural world? All who seek these rural homes, at the established
season, are supposed--if we are the correct exponents of common
opinion,--to take wings from the city, for those cool and shady nests,
under the influence of love for the country?

Of course, when the spring arrives, all who have led a fashionable
career for the winter, have a sudden and marvellous restoration to their
senses. Like those whom some friendly magician has freed from the
enchantments of an evil genius, they are restored to a healthy judgment.
They then perceive the folly of the life which they have led. The
absurdity of denominating as society, crowded assemblies, where
conversation bears the relation to interchange of thought, such as
becomes intelligent creatures, which wilted and fallen leaves sustain to
those of the beautiful and nutritious plant from which they have been
torn,--where trifles and external polish are accepted in the place of
the best qualities which can commend others to our esteem,--where
friendships are formed, not links of human creatures with affectionate
qualities to one another, but to fashion, whose representatives they
are,--friendships to be dissolved, as easily as the melting of the
Pyramids of frozen cream, all these facts become, as soon as the air is
heated in spring, some of the most clear of all possible demonstrations.
Then they long for a more reasonable life. All that true poets or wise
moralists have taught of the rural home, asserts its power over the
memory. All vulgar glare becomes utterly distasteful. Simplicity of
life, amid a nature that summons man to cast off artificial follies,
has a powerful fascination. They have been poor city puppets too long.
Let them now be true men and women, where all things are so true and
real. Hence they hasten to the country.

Let us be thankful that any influences, even those of fashion, draw so
many of our citizens from the towns to the country-places. Let us be
thankful, that the great river of city-life,--hurrying on so madly, and
tossing its stained waves crowned with bubbles that pain the eye, has
its side eddies, and throws off great branches for far away shades,
where the waters are at rest, and where innumerable small streams unite
their efforts to purify that which has so long been so turbid.

Minds and hearts will touch one another in the rural scene. The limited
number of associates will foster some more depths of mutual interest.
The Sunday in the country, the rural church, the gathering of the
congregation from green lanes, and winding roads, and not from streets
sacred to pomp and vanity, to business, and to glaring sin, God so
visible in all his glorious works, perhaps a Pastor trained by his
labors among plain people during the winter, to speak the Word with
greater simplicity, these are not influences which exist only in
appearance. Men ask why make life such a vain and foolish dream? I trust
the day will come, when many families of cultivated minds, will reside
all the year in our country-places. From such social circles influences
must go forth, to transform no inconsiderable portion of what is called
the society of the town. The necessary association of the two classes,
will prove of inestimable benefit to each.

If you passed along Pearl-run valley, and left the more cultivated
region, which we have described, the scene changed, and you found
yourself in wild places.

There were steep cliffs, with endless masses of broken stone beneath, as
if a Giant McAdam, ages ago had been meditating the formation of a great
road, like that we pigmies build on a smaller scale, in these degenerate
days. And there were mountains where you could scarcely detect any proof
that the hand of man had disturbed the primeval forests.

These you could ascend by winding paths, and attain elevations, where
half the world seemed to lie beneath your feet. Well do I remember such
an ascent with a sister, who had been a few hours before, with me in the
crowded city.

Our time was limited. What we could see of the glorious scenes around
us, must be accomplished late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down
while we were climbing up the side of the mountain. We had never been in
such deep shadows. For the first time in our lives, we knew what was the
awful grandeur of solitude. Our existence seemed more sublime for the
solemn awe.

As we hastened on to reach a vast rock, from whose summit we were
assured, the view was one of surpassing beauty, we met some children,
wild in appearance, barefooted, seeking cattle that found pasturage in
an open space, scarcely perceptible to the eye, that, at a distance,
could take in the whole aspect of the mountain. But one of these little
creatures in her kindness added, with surpassing power the effect of the
wilderness.

"Take care," she said, "you may be lost." We, in the vast mountain where
we could be lost!

What a sound for ears so lately filled with the noise of the crowded
city! Oh child! what human study could have taught the greatest genius
in our land, to speak and add to the solemn power, of that most
memorable time, of two awed and enthusiastic wanderers!

How strange it is that the intense excitement of the soul, among such
scenes, is such a healthy peace--never the over-wrought exertion of the
mind! The intense activity within us does not _subside_ into
tranquility. It is elevated to a peace. If you would have true enjoyment
there, God,--the Infinite Father,--our immortality--the world our
Redeemer has promised us, must be placed side by side with every
impression.

Our forests are strangely primeval solitudes, when you reflect what
tribes of Indians have resided in them. That wild people have left there
no traces of their existence. You often seem to be one of a few, who
alone have ever disturbed the Sabbath rest of very holy places.

Why did not the aboriginal inhabitants leave us in letters carved on the
rocks, traditions, which our learned and ingenious men could interpret?
We know not what we have lost in our deprivation of wonderful mysteries.
We wander by great oaks, and stony places unconscious of powers that
linger there. The lore of demons and of spirits that plagued or
comforted the Indians is lost to us.

Yet, let us not be unjust as though the civilization which has
superseded the rude Indian life, had given us no romantic substitutes
for these powers which agitated the barbarian. And especially let us be
just to the genius of those who came over from the wilds of Germany, as
well as those who had their intellect brightened by the illumination of
Plymouth Rock. The imaginations of the two, were, indeed, very diverse
in their nature. They differed as the stiff gowns and ample pantaloons,
all so quaintly made, from the paint and skins which made the array of
the savage.

I am by no means insensible to the poetry which speaks to us in the
horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep away witches, whose fears were
the more suggestive, because no one ever described the full power of the
mischief they were able to accomplish; and to the mysterious art
medicinal, rivalling in wisdom many of the celebrated systems of the
schools, whereby the muttering of strange words could cure a fever and
ague,--and where a nail that had pierced the foot was safely wrapped up
and laid up the chimney as a preventive of lock-jaw. The world is not so
prosaic as some would imagine.

I am happy, however, in being able to rescue one important tradition
from oblivion.

In one of the mountains of which I have spoken, which has been courteous
enough to retain its place, and ancient habits, notwithstanding the airs
and encroachments of the adjoining settlements, was a spot--well known
to some favored few of the Indian tribes. It was a mysterious place.

At the side of a large rock was a small cell. It was hollowed on its
stony side almost as if it had been a work of art. A little ledge that
stood across it, afforded a rude seat.

Tradition goes back to the wife of an Indian king, centuries ago, who
first acquired a knowledge of the virtues of the place, and availed
herself of the acquisition in a very happy manner.

It is a comfort and a sorrow to know how human nature has been the same
in all ages. Wives and husbands have had many virtues and failings in
common, whether they dwelt in primeval days in the Alleghany Mountains
or in Broadway in New York.

The Indian Queen had, it appears, great difficulty in preserving a
salutary discipline in the wigwam. Her lord--yet not her master--she had
never assented to that peculiar precedence in the marriage contract, had
been inclined to low company--that is to company that might be good
enough in itself, but was entirely too low for the royalty of the realm.
These fellows, white traders, who would prowl about to waylay his
Majesty, keeping respectfully out of sight of the Queen, were by no
means school-masters abroad for the benefit of the red man.

Even the queen, for some reason which it is difficult to conjecture, did
not object to the introduction of large quantities of fire-water into
the palace. She always took charge of it, however, and for that reason,
no doubt, felt that it would be used in a judicious manner.

But at last the king was unwise enough to set up as a reformer; not
under the instigation of the white men,--but indirectly, through their
influence. There is nothing new under the sun. We now abound in men and
women, who are in advance of their age. A man of mere genius, in these
days, is a helpless creature; sure to be laid up like old lumber in a
house, in some out of the way place of deposit. But if he should only
have a moderate disorder of the brain,--have circumstances to occur,
which would produce the effect which according to Bishop Warburton was
the result of the earthquake in his day, "widening the crack in old Will
Winston's noddle,"--then particularly if he can be mad after a method,
he is sure to form a society, and to be well fed and famous.

There was also in our kingly Indian reformer, one disagreeable
quality,--by no means unknown in an enlightened philosophical head of
associations. In all his projects, he was himself a central object. He
differed from some of our reformers in one respect. He was not crazy for
notoriety.

Among other things which he learnt from these good-for-nothing white
scamps, who were in such disfavor with the queen, fellows who had
traveled all around the world to little purpose,--sifting with wonderful
skill all useless and bad knowledge from the good, and casting away the
good as chaff, was a piece of information concerning the social
relations of some of his royal cousins in distant lands.

They gave him a glowing picture of a great chief who had a great host of
wives. Our king had informed one of his friends, that he thought that
the introduction of this custom on our American strand, would be a most
desirable improvement. And one day, under the influence of fire-water,
which in opening his heart, proved how good a fellow he was, he
suggested the theory to the queen.

It is said, that the wary queen, in her distress and perplexity at this
theory, sought for one of the wonder-workers of her tribe, and learnt
from him the secret powers of this cell. There she placed her royal
spouse, who slept until he was sober enough to dream a wise dream. The
consequence was his reformation. After this, it is also said, that the
queen attained such domestic power, that a warrior who slept under their
roof one night, was heard to inquire of one of his tribe, whether in
case the people should go out on the war-path, the woman would be the
great warrior.

It is also reported, that the spirit of the Indian queen often haunts
the cell, and has some secret power to allure chosen way-farers there to
rest, and have the dreams which belong to the place. The great
peculiarity of the mysterious power here exerted on the dreamer, was
this,--that he was compelled in his dreams, to follow a course contrary
to his habits and nature, and to learn some of the results of a new
course of conduct.

Over the cell were jutting rocks, which threw down as the sun was over
them, strange shadows, making the most mysterious letters. Curious wild
vines, with grotesque leaves, grew above it, having a fragrance like
that of poppies, but of greater intensity. Some fir trees near, blended
their murmurs with the hum of the wild-bees, and with a rill whose
waters passed over a rock, covered with green weeds, and fell into a
small dead pool, whose issues crept silently away amid innumerable
roots. Opposite, on a mountain, was a circle composed of various
objects, which, as you gazed seemed to move round with ever increasing
rapidity, and to exercise a mesmeric power in causing tranquility, and a
state of repose in which you were prepared for a control, extraneous to
your own mind. The sides of the cell receded slightly inwards, in gentle
curves, in such a way that you were tempted to recline, and lean your
head for rest on the moss-covered hollows of the rock.

One of the inhabitants of our valley, whose name was Eugene Cranmer, had
left the hill-side where he had a luxurious mansion, and had wandered
into the wild region, that contained this mysterious cell.

He was well pleased to see the general air of comfort, as he strolled
along; for it disquieted him to look on men who were very poor, inasmuch
as he had a vague sense that he was called on for some exertion in their
behalf. The poor seemed to him to mar the general aspect of the world,
as some unfortunate error in the taste of an artist, will mar the
general beauty of his picture. He wished all to be at peace, and have
enough to eat and put on; for the world, in such a state, seemed to be a
suitable place for a man who had attained great prosperity; and who had
the undefined impression that his life would be extended a few hundred
years, before he would be under the unhappy alternative of passing to a
good place in a better country. He provided well in his house for
himself; and of course he felt that such a care was all 

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