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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860

Author: Various


        
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. V.--APRIL, 1860--NO. XXX.




THE LAWS OF BEAUTY.


The fatal mistake of many inquirers concerning the line of beauty has
been, that they have sought in that which is outward for that which is
within. Beauty, perceived only by the mind, and, so far as we have any
direct proof, perceived by man alone of all the animals, must be an
expression of intelligence, the work of mind. It cannot spring from
anything purely accidental; it does not arise from material, but from
spiritual forces. That the outline of a figure, and its surface, are
capable of expressing the emotions of the mind is manifest from the art
of the sculptor, which represents in cold, colorless marble the varied
expressions of living faces,--or from the art of the engraver, who, by
simple outlines, can soothe you with a swelling lowland landscape, or
brace you with the cool air of the mountains.

Now the highest beauty is doubtless that which expresses the noblest
emotion. A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with
the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features
without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal
emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form,
and which is admired for its form alone.

Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited
species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only.

This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been
resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others
into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early
pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the
subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation.
Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they
must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the
artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to
need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this
embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the
mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature
of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the
nature of beauty.

We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of
Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles
alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in
form alone.

Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it
is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least
possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men
in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness
in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so
elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease
with which their achievements are accomplished. We seek in all things
simplicity and unity. In Nature we have faith that there is such unity,
even in the midst of the wildest diversity. We honor intellectual
conceptions in proportion to the greatness of their consequences and to
the simplicity of their assumptions. Laws of form are beautiful in
proportion to their simplicity and to the variety which they can
comprise in unity. The beauty of forms themselves is in proportion to
the simplicity of their law and to the variety of their outline.

This last sentence we regard as the fundamental canon concerning
beauty,--governing, with a slight change of terms, beauty in all its
departments.

Beginning with the fundamental division of figures into curvilinear and
rectilinear, this _dictum_ decides, that, in general, a curved outline
is more beautiful than a right-lined figure. For a straight-lined
figure necessarily requires at least half as many laws as it has sides,
while a curvilinear outline requires, in general, but a single law. In
a true curve, every point in the whole line (or surface) is subject to
one and the same law of position. Thus, in the circle, every point of
the circumference is subject to one and the same law,--that it must be
at a certain distance from the centre. Half a dozen other laws, equally
simple, might be named, which in like manner govern every point in the
circumference of a circle: for instance, the curve bends at every point
by a certain fixed but infinitesimal amount, just enough to make the
adjacent points to be equally near the centre. Or, to take another
example, every point of the elastic curve, that is, of the curve in
which a spring of uniform stiffness can be bent by a force applied at
the ends of the spring, is subject to this very simple law, that the
curve bends in exact proportion to its distance from a certain straight
line. Now a straight line, or a plane, is by this definition a curve,
since every point in it is subject to one and the same law of position.
A plane may, indeed, be considered a part of any curved surface you
please, if you only take that surface on a sufficiently large scale.
Thus, the surface of water conforms to the surface of a sphere eight
thousand miles in diameter; but, as the arc of such a circle would arch
up from a chord ten feet long by only the ten-millionth part of an
inch, the surface of water in a cistern may be considered a plane. But
no figure or outline can be composed of a single plane or a single
straight line; nor can the position of more than two straight lines,
not parallel, be defined by a single simple law of position of the
points in them. We may, therefore, regard it as the first deduction
from our fundamental canon, that figures with curving outline are in
general more beautiful than those composed of straight lines. The laws
of their formation are simpler, and the eye, sweeping round the
outline, feels the ease and gracefulness of the motion, recognizes the
simplicity of the law by which it is guided, and is pleased with the
result.

Our second deduction relates principally to rectilinear figures; it is,
that symmetry is in general, and particularly in rectilinear figures,
more beautiful than irregularity. It requires, in general, simpler laws
to produce symmetry than to produce what is unsymmetrical; since the
corresponding parts in a symmetrical figure are instinctively
recognized as flowing from one and the same law. This preference for
symmetry is, however, frequently subordinated to higher demands of the
fundamental canon. If the outline be rectilineal, simplicity of law
produces symmetry, and variety of result can be attained only at the
expense of simplicity in the law. But in curved outlines it frequently
happens, that, with equally simple laws, we can obtain much greater
variety by dispensing with symmetry; and then, by the canon, we thus
obtain the higher beauty.

The question may be asked, In what way does this canon decide the
question, of proportions? Which of the two rectangles is, according to
this _dictum_, more beautiful, that in which the sides are in simple
ratio, or that in which the angles made with the sides by a diagonal
are in such ratio?--that, for instance, in which the shorter side is
three-fifths of the longer, or that in which the shorter side is five
hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of the longer? Our own view was
formerly in favor of a simple ratio between the sides; but experiments
have convinced us that persons of good taste, and who have never been
prejudiced by reading Hay's ingenious speculations, do nevertheless
agree in preferring rectangles and ellipses which fulfil his law of
simple ratio between the angles made by the diagonal. We acknowledge
that we have not brought this result under the canon, but look upon it
as indicating the necessity of another canon to somewhat this
effect,--that in the laws of form direction is a more important element
than distance.

We have said that a curved line is one in which every point is subject
to one and the same law of position. Now it may be easily proved, that,
in a series of points in a plane, each of which fulfils one and the
same condition of position, any three, if taken sufficiently near each
other, lie in one straight line. A fourth point near the third lies,
then, in a straight line with the second and third,--a fifth with the
third and fourth, and so on. The whole series of points must, in short,
form a line. But it may also be easily proved that any four of these
points, taken sufficiently near each other, lie in the arc of a circle.
How strange the paradox to which we are thus led! Every law of a curve,
however simple, leads to the same conclusion; a curve must bend at
every point, and yet not bend at any point; it must be nowhere a
straight line, and yet be a straight line at every part. The
blacksmith, passing an iron bar between three rollers to make a tire
for a wheel, bends every part of it infinitely little, so that the
bending shall not be perceptible at any one spot, and shall yet in the
whole length arch the tire to a full circle. It may be that in this
paradox lies an additional charm of the curved outline. The eye is
pleased to find itself deceived, lured insensibly round into a line
running in a different direction from that on which it started.

The simplest law of position for a point would be, either to have it in
a given direction from a given point,--a law which would manifestly
generate a straight line,--or else to have it at a given distance from
the given point, which would generate the surface of a sphere, the
outline of which is the circumference of a circle. The straight line
fulfils part of the conditions of beauty demanded by the first canon,
but not the whole,--it has no variety, and must be combined in order to
produce a large effect. The simplest combination of straight lines is
in parallels, and this is its usual combination in works of Art. The
circle also fulfils but imperfectly the demands of the fundamental
canon. It is the simplest of all curves, and the standard or measure of
curvature,--vastly more simple in its laws than any rectilineal figure,
and therefore more beautiful than any simple figure of that kind. There
is, however, a sort of monotony in its beauty,--it has no variety of
parts.

The outline of a sphere, projected by the beholder against any plane
surface behind it, is a circle only when a perpendicular, let fall on
the plane from the eye, passes through the centre of the sphere. In
other positions the projection of the sphere becomes an ellipse, or one
of its varieties, the parabola and hyperbola. The parabola is the
boundary of the projection of a sphere upon a plane, when the eye is
just as far from the plane as the outer edge of the sphere is, and the
hyperbola is a similar curve formed by bringing the eye still nearer to
the plane.

By these metamorphoses the circle loses much of its monotony, without
losing much of its simplicity. The law of the projection of a sphere
upon a plane is simple, in whatever position the plane may be. And if
we seek a law for the ellipse, or either of the conic sections, which
shall confine our attention to the plane, the laws remain simple. There
are for these curves two centres, which come together for the circle,
and recede to an infinite distance for the parabola; and the simple law
of their formation is, that the curve everywhere makes equal angles
with the lines drawn to these two centres. According to the fundamental
canon, a conic section should be a beautiful curve; and the proof that
it is so is to be found in the attention which these curves have always
drawn upon themselves from artists and from mathematicians. Plato,
equally great in mathematics and in metaphysics, is said to have been
the first to investigate the properties of the ellipse. For about a
century and a half, to the time of Apollonius, the beauty of this
curve, and of its variations, the parabola and hyperbola, so fascinated
the minds of Plato's followers, that Apollonius found theorems and
problems relating to these figures sufficient to fill eight books with
condensed truths concerning them. The study of the conic sections has
been a part of polite learning from his day downward. All men confess
their beauty, which so entrances those of mathematical genius as
entirely to absorb them. For eighteen centuries the finest spirits of
our race drew some of their best means of intellectual discipline from
the study of the ellipse. Then came a new era in the history of this
curve. Hitherto it had been an abstract form, a geometrical
speculation. But Kepler, by some fortunate guess, was led to examine
whether the orbits of the planets might not be elliptical, and, lo! it
was found that this curve, whose beauty had so fascinated so many men
for so many ages, had been deemed by the great Architect of the Heavens
beautiful enough to introduce into Nature on the grandest scale; the
morning stars had been for countless ages tracing diagrams beforehand
in illustration of Apollonius's conic sections. It seemed that this
must have been the design of Providence in leading Plato and his
followers to investigate the ellipse, that Kepler might be prepared to
guide men to a knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies.
"And," said Kepler, "if the Creator has waited so many years for an
observer, I may wait a century for a reader." But in less than a
century a reader arose in the person of the English Newton. The ellipse
again appeared in human history, playing a no less important part than
before. For, as it was only by a profound knowledge of ellipses that
Kepler could establish his three beautiful facts with regard to the
motions of the planets, so also was it only through a still more
perfect and intimate acquaintance with the minute peculiarities of that
curve that Sir Isaac Newton could demonstrate that these three facts
were perfectly accounted for only by his theory of universal
gravitation,--the most beautiful theory ever devised, and the most
firmly established of all scientific hypotheses. If the ellipse, as a
simply geometrical speculation, has had so much power in the education
of the race, what are the intellectual relations of its beauty through
its connection with astronomy? Who can estimate the influence which
this oldest of physical sciences has had upon human destiny? Who can
tell how much intellectual life and self-reliance, how much also of
humility and reverential awe, how much adoration of Divine Wisdom, have
been gained by man through his study of these heavenly diagrams, marked
out by the sun and the moon, by the planets and the comets, upon the
tablets of the sky? Yet, without the ellipse, without the conic
sections of Plato and Apollonius, astronomy would have been to this day
a sealed science, and the labors of Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Tycho, and
Copernicus would have waited in vain for the genius of Kepler and of
Newton to educe divine order from the seeming chaos of motions.

But the obligations of man to the ellipse do not end here. The
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also owe it a debt of gratitude.
Even where the knowledge of conic sections does not enter as a direct
component of that analytical power which was the glory of a Lagrange, a
Laplace, and a Gauss, and which is the glory of a Leverrier, a Peirce,
and their companions in science, it serves as a part of the necessary
scaffolding by which that skill is attained,--of the necessary
discipline by which their power was exercised and made available for
the solution of the great problems of astronomy, optics, and
thermotics, which have been solved in our century.

There is another curve, generated by a simple law from a circle, which
has played an important part at various epochs in the intellectual
history of our race. A spot on the tire of a wheel running on a
straight, level road, will describe in the air a series of peculiar
arches, called the cycloid. The law of its formation is simple; the law
of its curvature is also simple. The path in which the spot moves
curves exactly in proportion to its nearness to the lowest point of the
wheel. By the simplicity of its law, it ought, according to the canon,
to be a beautiful curve. Now, although artists have not shown any
admiration for the cycloid, as they have for the ellipse, yet the
mathematicians have gazed upon it with great eagerness, and found it
rich in intellectual treasures. Chasles, in his History, says that the
cycloid interweaves itself with all the great discoveries of the
seventeenth century.

A curve which fulfils more perfectly the demands of our _dictum_ is
that of an elastic thread, to which we have already alluded. If the two
ends of a straight steel hair be brought towards each other by simple
pressure, the intervening spring may be put into a series of various
forms,--simple undulations, and those more complicated, a figure 8,
loops turning alternately opposite ways, loops turning all one way, and
finally a circle. Now the whole of this variety is the result of
subjecting each part of the curve to a law more simple than that of the
cycloid. The elastic curve is a curve which bends or curves exactly in
proportion to its distance from a given straight line. According to the
canon, therefore, this curve should be beautiful; and it is
acknowledged to be so in the examples given by the bending osier and
the waving grain,--also by the few who have seen full drawings of all
the forms. And the mathematician finds in it a new beauty, from its
marvellous correspondence with the motions of a pendulum,--the
algebraic expression of the two being identical.

The forms of organic life afford, however, the best examples of the
dominion of our fundamental canon. The infinite variety of vegetable
forms, all beautiful, and each one different in its beauty, is all the
result of simple laws. It is true that these simple laws are not as yet
all discovered; but the one great discovery of Phyllotaxis, which shows
that all plants follow one law in the arrangement of their leaves upon
the stem, thereby intimates in unmistakable language the simplicity and
unity of all organic vegetable laws; and a similar assurance is given
by the morphological reduction of all parts to a metamorphosed leaf.

The law of phyllotaxis, like that of the elastic curve, is carried out
in time as well as in space. As the formula for the elastic curve is
the same as that for the pendulum, so the law by which the spaces of
the leaves are divided in scattering them round the stem, to give each
its opportunity for light and air, is the same as that by which the
times of the planets are proportioned to keep them scattered about the
sun, and prevent them from gathering on one side of their central orb.

The forms of plants and trees are dependent upon the arrangement of the
branches, and the arrangement of the branches depends upon that of the
buds or leaves. The leaves are arranged by this numerical law,--that
the angular distance about the stem between two successive leaves shall
be in such ratio to the whole circumference as may be expressed by a
continued fraction composed wholly of the figure 1. It is, then, true,
that all the beauty of the vegetable world which depends on the
arrangement of parts--the graceful symmetry or more graceful apparent
disregard of symmetry in the general form of plants, all the charm of
the varying forms of forest trees, which adds such loveliness to the
winter landscape, and such a refined source of pleasure to the
exhilaration of the winter morning walk--is the result of the simplest
variations in a simple numerical law; and is thus clearly brought under
our fundamental canon. It is the perception of this unity in diversity,
of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms,
however diverse,--the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the
cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory,
the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,--which charms the eye of
those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this
unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures this
diversity may be expressed.

When we look at the animal kingdom, we recognize there also the
presence of simple, all-pervading laws. The four great types of animal
structures are readily discerned by the dullest eye: no man fails to
see the likeness among all vertebrates, or the likeness among all
articulates, the likeness among alt mollusks, or the likeness among all
radiates. These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the
untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that
there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in
their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies.

The difference between the four types of animals is marked at a very
early period in the embryo,--the embryo taking one of four different
forms, according to the department to which it belongs; and Peirce has
shown that these four forms are all embodiments of one single law of
position. If, then, one single algebraic law of form includes the four
diverse forms of the four great branches of the animal kingdom, is it
extravagant to suppose that the diversities in each branch are also
capable of being included in simple generalizations of form? Is it
unreasonable to believe that the exceeding beauty of animated forms,
and of the highest, the human form, arises from the fact that these
forms are the result of some simple intellectual law, a simple
conception of the Divine Geometer, assuming varied developments in the
great series of animated beings? It is the unity of the form, arising
from the simplicity of its law, and the multiplicity of its
manifestations or details, arising from the generality of its law,
that, intuitively perceived by the eye, although the intellect may not
apprehend them, give the charm to the figures of the animate creation.

The subject, even in the narrow limits which we have imposed upon
ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals
might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the
most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater
variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they
included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside
the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that
in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds
true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity
and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most
beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of
space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we
find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear
outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of
simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how
inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere
matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy
chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions,
in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are
governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy
and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding.

So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes
the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses
itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the
inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the
adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an
infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the
observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its
Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science
resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole
universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of
perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this
unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty.




FOUND AND LOST.

And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and
pottage of lentiles.

GEN. xxv. 33, 34.


......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an
hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that
face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the
Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and
forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned
behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if
to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man
who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so
satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if
resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have
finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in
connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who
one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some
of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and,
overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into
tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and
then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and
we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his
hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep.

I dropped the curtains of the bed, drew those of the window more
closely, to exclude the shrill winter wind that was blowing the slant
sleet against the clattering window-panes, broke up the lump of cannel
coal in the grate into a bright blaze that subsided into a warm, steady
glow of heat and light, drew an arm-chair and a little table up to the
cheerful fire, and sat down to read the manuscript which the quiet man
behind the curtains had given me. Why shouldn't I (I was his physician)
make myself as comfortable as was possible at two o'clock of a stormy
winter night, in a house that contained but two persons beside my
German patient,--a half-stupid serving-man, doubtless already asleep
down-stairs, and myself? This is what I read that night, with the
comfortable fire on one side, and Death, holding strange colloquy with
the fitful, screaming, moaning wind, on the other.

As I wish simply to relate what has happened to me, (thus the
manuscript began,) what I attempted, in what I sinned, and how I
failed, I deem no introduction or genealogies necessary to the first
part of my life. I was an only child of parents who were passionately
fond of me,--the more, perhaps, because an accident that had happened
to me in my childhood rendered me for some years a partial invalid. One
day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my
father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the
horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I
found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain
elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the
horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup,
and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did
start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at
the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and
finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a
fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me
till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by
an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack,
but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others.

I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary
life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief
occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years.

My reading generally had one peculiar tone: a certain kind of mystery
was an essential ingredient in the fascination that books which I
considered interesting had for me. My earliest fairy tales were not
those unexciting stories in which the good genius appears at the
beginning of the book, endowing the hero with such an invincible
talisman that suspense is banished from the reader's mind, too well
enabled to foresee the triumph at the end; but stories of long, painful
quests after hidden treasure,--mysterious enchantments thrown around
certain persons by witch or wizard, drawing the subject in charmed
circles nearer and nearer to his royal or ruinous destiny,--strange
spells cast upon bewitched houses or places, that could be removed only
by the one hand appointed by Fate. So I pored over the misty legends of
the San Grail, and the sweet story of "The Sleeping Beauty," as my
first literature; and as the rough years of practical boyhood trooped
up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same
hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories,
Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main,
of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap
with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light
the paths to their secret hiding-places.

But in the last year of my captivity as an invalid a new pleasure fell
into my hands. I discovered my first book of travels in my father's
library, and as with a magical key unlocked the gate of an enchanted
realm of wondrous and ceaseless beauty. It was Sir John Mandeville who
introduced me to this field of exhaustless delight; not a very
trustworthy guide, it must be confessed,--but my knowledge at that time
was too limited to check the boundless faith I reposed in his
narrative. It was such an astonishment to discover that men,
black-coated and black-trousered men, such as I saw in crowds every day
in the street from my sofa-corner, (we had moved to the city shortly
after my accident,) had actually broken away from that steady stream of
people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in
the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I
scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or
those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by
perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who
could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with Ross or Parry,
or the scorching jungles of the Equator with Burckhardt and Park. Cut
off for so long a time from actual contact with the outside world, I
could better imagine the brooding stillness of the Great Desert, I
could more easily picture the weird ice-palaces of the Pole, waiting,
waiting forever in awful state, like the deserted halls of the Walhalla
for their slain gods to return, than many of the common street-scenes
in my own city, which I had only vaguely heard mentioned.

I followed the footsteps of the Great Seekers over the wastes, the
untrodden paths of the world; I tracked Columbus across the pathless
Atlantic,--heard, with Balboa, the "wave of the loud-roaring ocean
break upon the long shore, and the vast sea of the Pacific forever
crash on the beach,"--gazed with Cortés on the temples of the Sun in
the startling Mexican empire,--or wandered with Pizarro through the
silver-lined palaces of Peru. But a secret affection drew me to the
mysterious regions of the East and South,--towards Arabia, the wild
Ishmael bequeathing sworded Korans and subtile Aristotles as legacies
to the sons of the freed-woman,--to solemn Egypt, riddle of nations,
the vast, silent, impenetrable mystery of the world. By continual
pondering over the footsteps of the Seekers, the Sought-for seemed to
grow to vast proportions, and the Found to shrink to inappreciable
littleness. For me, over the dreary ice-plains of the Poles, over the
profound bosom of Africa, the far-stretching steppes of Asia, and the
rocky wilds of America, a great silence brooded, and in the unexplored
void faint footfalls could be heard here and there, threading their way
in the darkness. But while the longing to plunge, myself, into these
dim regions of expectation grew more intense each day, the
prison-chains that had always bound me still kept their habitual hold
upon me, even after my recovery. I dreamt not of making even the
vaguest plans for undertaking explorations myself. So I read and
dreamt, filling my room with wild African or monotonous Egyptian
scenery, until I was almost weaned from ordinary Occidental life.

I passed four blissful years In this happy dream-life, and then it was
abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost
simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I
was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was
unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the
possession of the small house my father had owned in the country before
our removal to the city, and to be provided for.

My uncle placed me in a mercantile house to learn business, and, after
exercising some slight supervision over me a few months, left me
entirely to my own resources. As, however, he had previously taken care
that these resources should be sufficient, I got along very well upon
them, was regularly promoted, and in the space of six years, at the age
of twenty-one, was in a rather responsible situation in the house, with
a good salary. But my whole attention could not be absorbed in the dull
routine of business, my most precious hours were devoted to reading, in
which I still pursued my old childish track of speculation, with the
difference that I exchanged Sinbad's valley of diamonds for Arabia
Petraea, Sir John Mandeville for Herodotus, and Robinson Crusoe for
Belzoni and Burckhardt Whether my interest in these Oriental studies
arose from the fact of the house being concerned in the importation of
the products of the Indies, or whether from the secret attraction that
had drawn me Eastward since my earliest childhood, as if the Arab
doctor had bewitched in curing me, I cannot say; probably it was the
former, especially as the India business became gradually more and more
intrusted to my hands.

Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I received a note from my
uncle, from whom I had not heard for a year, or two, informing me that
my father's house, which he had kept rented for me during the first
years of my minority, had been without a tenant for a year, and, as I
had now come of age, I had better go down to D---- and take possession
of it. This letter, touching upon a long train of associations and
recollections, awoke an intense longing in me to revisit the home of my
childhood, and meet those phantom shapes that had woven that spell in
those dreaming years, which I sometimes thought I felt even now. So I
obtained a short leave of absence, and started the next morning in the
coach for D----.

It was what is called a "raw morning," for what reason I know not, for
such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft
gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain
fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and
peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The
outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away
by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring
facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some
new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid
land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For,
after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and
let the presence and action of that be withdrawn but for a few moments,
and that mysterious Something which we vainly endeavor to push off into
the Void by our pompous nothings of brick and plaster and stone closes
down upon us with the descending sky, writing _Delendum_ on all behind
us, _Unknown_ on all before. At that time, the only actual Now, that
stands between these two infinite blanks, becomes identical with the
mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and
the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of
physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy
surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions
and feelings.

I was the only inside passenger, and there was nothing to check the
entire surrender of my mind to all ghostly influence. So I lay
stretched upon the cushions, staring blankly into the dense gray fog
closing up all trace of our travelled road, or watching the light edges
of the trailing mist curl coyly around the roofs of houses and then
settle grimly all over them, the fantastic shapes of trees or carts
distorted and magnified through the mist, the lofty outlines of some
darker cloud stalking solemnly here and there, like enormous dumb
overseers faithfully superintending the work of annihilation. The
monotonous patter of the rain-drops upon the wet pavement or muddy
roads, blending with the low whining of the wind and the steady rumble
of the coach-wheels, seemed to make a kind of witch-chant, that wove
with braided sound a weird spell about me, a charm fating me for some
service, I knew not what. That chant moaned, it wailed, it whispered,
it sang gloriously, it bound, it drowned me, it lapped me in an
inextricable stream of misty murmuring, till I was perplexed,
bewildered, enchanted. I felt surprised at myself, when, at the end of
the day's journey, I carried my bag to the hotel, and ate my supper
there as usual,--and felt natural again only when, having obtained the
key of my house, I sallied forth in the dim twilight to make it my
promised visit.

I found the place, as I had expected, in a state of utter desolation. A
year's silence had removed it so far from the noisy stream of life that
flowed by it, that I felt, as I pushed at the rusty door-lock, as if I
were passing into some old garret of Time, where he had thrown
forgotten rubbish too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong
scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box
of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away
(it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with
my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had
rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now
probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which
impregnated the air of the whole house was the essence of that
atmosphere in which, as a child, I had communicated with Burckhardt and
Belzoni,--and that, expelled by the solid, practical, Occidental
atmosphere of the last few years, it had flowed back again, in these
last silent months, in anticipation of my return.

Like a prudent householder, I made the tour of the house with a light I
had provided myself with, and mentally made memoranda of repairs,
alterations, etc., for rendering it habitable. My last visit was to be
to the garret, where many of my books yet remained. As I passed once
more through the parlor, on my way thither, a ray of light from my
raised lamp fell upon the wall that I had thought blank, and a majestic
face started suddenly from the darkness. So sudden was the apparition,
that for the moment I was startled, till I remembered that there had
formerly been a picture in that place, and I stopped to examine it. It
was a head of the Sphinx. The calm, grand face was partially averted,
so that the sorrowful eyes, almost betraying the aching secret which
the still lips kept sacred, were hidden,--only the slight, tender droop
in the corner of the mouth told what their expression might be. Around,
forever stretched the endless sands,--the mystery of life found in the
heart of death. That mournful, eternal face gave me a strange feeling
of weariness and helplessness. I felt as if I had already pressed
eagerly to the other side of the head, still only to find the voiceless
lips and mute eyes. Strange tears sprang to my eyes; I hastily brushed
them away, and, leaving the Sphinx, mounted to my garret.

But the riddle followed me. I sat down on the floor, beside a box of
books, and somewhat listlessly began pulling it over to examine the
contents. The first book I took hold of was a little worn volume of
Herodotus that had belonged to my father. I opened it; and as if it,
too, were a link in the chain of influences which I half felt was being
forged around me, it opened at the first part of "Euterpe," where
Herodotus is speculating upon the phenomena of the Nile. Twenty-two
hundred years,--I thought,--and we are still wondering, the Sphinx is
still silent, and we yet in the darkness! Alas, if this riddle be
insoluble, how can we hope to find the clue to deeper problems? If
there are places on our little earth whither our feet cannot go,
curtains that our hands cannot withdraw, how can we expect to track
paths through realms of thought,--how to voyage in those airy,
impalpable regions whose existence we are sure of only while we are
there voyaging?

"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem Occuluitque caput, quod
adhuc latet."

Lost through reckless presumption, might not earnest humility recover
that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter
self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and
selfish pollution,--might not such a one tear away the veil of
centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into
this arcanum? Might not I?--The unutterable thought thrilled me and
left me speechless, even in thinking. I strained my forehead against
the darkness, as if I could grind the secret from the void air. Then I
experienced the following mental sensation,--which, being purely
mental, I cannot describe precisely as it was, but will translate it as
nearly as possible into the language of physical phenomena.

It was as if my mind--or, rather, whatever that passive substratum is
that underlies our volition and more truly represents ourselves--were a
still lake, lying quiet and indifferent. Presently the sense of some
coming Presence sent a breathing ripple over its waters; and
immediately afterward it felt a sweep as of trailing garments, and two
arms were thrown around it, and it was pressed against a "life-giving
bosom," whose vivifying warmth interpenetrating the whole body of the
lake, its waters rose, moved by a mighty influence, in the direction of
that retreating Presence; and again, though nothing was seen, I felt
surely whither was that direction. It was NILEWARD. I knew, with the
absolute certainty of intuition, that henceforth I was one of the
_kletoi_, the chosen,--selected from thousands of ages, millions of
people, for this one destiny. Henceforth a sharp dividing-line cut me
off from all others: _their_ appointment was to trade, navigate, eat
and drink, marry and give in marriage, and the rest; mine was to
discover the Source of the Nile. Hither had all the threads of my life
been converging for many years; they had now reached their focus, and
henceforth their course was fixed.

I was scarcely surprised the next day at receiving a letter from my
employers appointing me to a situation as supercargo of a
merchant-vessel bound on a three-years' voyage to America and
China,--in returning thence, to sail up the Mediterranean, and stop at
Alexandria. I immediately wrote an acceptance, and then busied myself
about obtaining a three-years' tenant for my house. As the house was
desirable and well-situated, this business was soon arranged; and then,
as I had nothing further to do in the village, I left it for the last
time, as it proved, and returned to the city,--whence, after a
fortnight of preparation, I set sail on my eventful enterprise.
Although our voyage was filled with incident that in another place
would be interesting enough to relate, yet here I must omit all mention
of it, and, passing over three years, resume my narrative at
Alexandria, where I left the vessel, and finally broke away from
mercantile life.

From Alexandria I travelled to Cairo, where I intended to hire a
servant and a boat, for I wished to try the water-passage in preference
to the land. The cheapness of labor and food rendered it no difficult
matter to obtain my boat and provision it for a long voyage,--for how
long I did not tell the Egyptian servant whom I hired to attend me. A
certain feeling of fatality caused me to make no attempt at disguise,
although disguise was then much more necessary than it has been since:
I openly avowed my purpose of travelling on the Nile for pleasure, as a
private European. My accoutrements were simple and few. Arms, of
course, I carried, and the actual necessaries for subsistence; but I
entirely forgot to prepare for sketching, scientific surveys, etc. My
whole mind was possessed with one idea: to see, to discover;--plans for
turning my discoveries to account were totally foreign to my thoughts.

So, on the 6th of November, 1824, we set sail. I had been waiting three
years to arrive at this starting-point,--my whole life, indeed, had
been dumbly turning towards it,--yet now I commenced it with a coolness
and tranquillity far exceeding that I had possessed on many
comparatively trifling occasions. It is often so. We are borne along on
the current like drift-wood, and, spying jutting rocks or tremendous
cataracts ahead, fancy, "Here we shall be stranded, there buoyed up,
there dashed in pieces over those falls,"--but, for all that, we glide
over those threatened catastrophes in a very commonplace manner, and
are aware of what we have been passing only upon looking back at them.
So no one sees the great light shining from Heaven,--for the people are
blear-eyed, and Saul is blinded. But as I left Cairo in the greatening
distance, floating onward to the heart of the mysterious river, I
floated also into the twin current of thought, that, flowing full and
impetuous from the shores of the peopled Mediterranean, follows the
silent river, and tracks it to its hidden lurking-place in the blank
desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past
the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel,
waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be
broken,--onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be
obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire
another above the second,--a forcible reminder that I was travelling
backwards, from the circumference to the centre from which that
circumference had been produced, faintly feeling my way along a tide of
phenomena to the _noumenon_ supporting them. So we always progress:
from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice
to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives
mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out
early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to
grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs
dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread,
and we are captured by the giant lying in wait!

On we swept, leaving behind the burning rocks and dreary sands of Egypt
and Lower Nubia, the green woods and thick acacias of Dongola, the
distant pyramids of Mount Birkel, and the ruins of Meroë, just
discovered footmarks of Ancient Ethiopia descending the Nile to
bequeathe her glory and civilization to Egypt. At Old Dongola, my
companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to
Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found
the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which
I had picked up in scraps,--he, no German or English. I managed to
overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part
of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction
of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week,
before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some
suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears
that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the
country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and
dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had
brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be
necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty
years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my
route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my
journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile,
which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me.

My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found
necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at
each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for
starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the
more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having
been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had
commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced
no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I
resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful
occurring,--floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white
line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through
floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of
foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by
adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and
purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding
the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the
river, flowing, ever flowing,--lurking in the cool shade of the dense
mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of
hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in
the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the
mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing.

We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by
broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured
by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging
over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my
complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the
tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred
that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock,
when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious
freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be
passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and
I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the
brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land,
I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank,
preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud,
cheery voice exclaim in English,--"Hilloa! not so fast, if you
please!"--and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white
man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were
surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a
contented air that perplexed me exceedingly.

"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you";
and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the
ground beside him.

"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir,
you have the advantage."

Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh.  "My dear
fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage
that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of
knowing your name, though you may know mine without further
preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to
avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the
short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the
brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and
that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with
an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my
direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or
your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance,
and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed
you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been
yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched
my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see
you, I assure you."

With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the
yacht.

"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you
are very unceremonious."

"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to
palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are
so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were
bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an
American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with
the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!"

Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush,
and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down
to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's
furniture, and sprang in with the _nonchalance_ of his master.

A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of
a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new
companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the
vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell
full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The
forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen,
hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality.
The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,--the mouth of
good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so
young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of
face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the
shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the
pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled
presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in
analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the
tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew
not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his
whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the
whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or
valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,--never any cool recesses
in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so
nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;--like them, it
could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my
deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he
would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to
me, again to be renewed and confirmed.

And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man
who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so.
Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand,
there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current,
or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel.

I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a
pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize
with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one
in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply
regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine
a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and
coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which
surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that
it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed
by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and
unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the
time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved
it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability
had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could
be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things
could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of
anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride
in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality,
upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he
sailed up the Nile as if it were the Mississippi; although a
well-enough-informed man, he practically ignored the importance of any
city anterior to the Plymouth Settlement, or at least to London, which
had the honor of sending colonists to New England; and he would have
discussed American politics in the heart of Africa, had not my
ignorance upon the topic generally excluded it from our conversation.
He had what is most wrongly termed an exceedingly practical mind,--that
is, not one that appreciates the practical existence and value of
thought as such, considering that a _praxis_, but a mind that denied
the existence of a thought until it had become realized in visible
action.

"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the
noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me,
as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I
was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we
had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as
it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as
useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel."

"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does
the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels
turning? For the sake of merely moving?"

"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_
another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_."

"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to
accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move
wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan,
no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of
having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large
plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects,
proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action,
more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression?
What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for
our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action?
These are all our operative machinery. Does he mean that our 'noblest
thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them
means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in
upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we
live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?"

"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from
knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still
action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the
brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is
simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the
wheels, and not in the train."

"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world,
then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of
another; which means that we must continually alter or displace
something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else."

"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for
definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many
iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir,
does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for
one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron
foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to
take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting
black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of
Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing,
fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming,
racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must
act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it
with thy might."

"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will
you then allow some play for thought-action?"

"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus
stopping our conversation.

The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical
motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the
action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed;
consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided
himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He
did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them
common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found
lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his
metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence.

"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing
he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You
can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it;
so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well
without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to,
and know it is there by seeing and touching."

"But," said I, "does not that very susceptibility to bodily contact
remove the table to an indefinite distance from you? If we can see and
handle a thing, and yet not be able to hold that subtile property of
generic existence, by which, one table being made, an infinite class is
created, so real that tables may actually be modelled on it, and yet so
indefinite that you cannot set your hand on any table or collection of
tables and say, 'It is here,'--if we can be absolutely conscious that
we see the table, and yet have no idea how its image reflected on our
retina can produce that absolute consciousness, does not the table grow
dim and misty, and slip far away out of reach, of apprehension, much
more of comprehension?"

"Stuff!" cried my companion. "If your metaphysics lead to proving that
a board that I am touching with my hand is not there, I'll say, as I
have already said, 'Throw (meta)physics to the dogs! I'll none of it!'
A fine preparation for living in a material world, where we have to
live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a
snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live
in, or by, or for! Now _you_, for instance, are not content with this
poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and
mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I
look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in
which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real,
substantial river,--not equal for navigation to the Ohio or
Mississippi, but still very fair.--Confound these flies!" he added,
parenthetically, making a vigorous plunge at a dark cloud of the little
pests that were closing down upon us.

"Then you see nothing strange and solemn in this wonderful stream?
nothing in the weird civilization crouching at the feet, vainly looking
to the head of its master hidden in the clouds? nothing in the echoing
footsteps of nations passing down its banks to their destiny? nothing
in the solemn, unbroken silence brooding over the fountain whence
sprang this marvellous river, to bear precious gifts to thousands and
millions, and again retreat unknown? Is there no mystery in unsolved
questions, no wonder in miracles, no awe in inapproachability?"

"I see," said he, steadily, "that a river of some thousand miles long
has run through a country peopled by contented, or ignorant, or
barbarous people, none of whom, of course, would take the slightest
interest in tracing the river; that the dangers that have guarded the
marvellous secret, as you call it, are not intrinsic to the secret
itself, but are purely accidental and contingent There is no more
reason why the source of the Nile should not be found than that of the
Connecticut; so I do not see that it is really at all inapproachable or
awful."

"What in the world, Herndon," cried I, in desperation, "what in the
name of common sense ever induced you to set out on this expedition?
What do you want to discover the source of the Nile for?"

He answered with the ready air of one who has long ago made up his mind
confidently on the subject he is going to speak about.

"It has long been evident to me, that civilization, flowing in a return
current from America, must penetrate into Africa, and turn its immense
natural advantages to such account, that it shall become the seat of
the most flourishing and important empires of the earth. These,
however, should be consolidated, and not split up into multitudinous
missionary stations. If a stream of immigration could be started from
the eastern side, up the Nile for instance, penetrating to the
interior, it might meet the increased tide of a kindred nature from the
west, and uniting somewhere in the middle of Soudan, the central point
of action, the capital city could be founded there, as a heart for the
country, and a complete system of circulation be established. By this
method of entering the country at both sides simultaneously, of course
its complete subjugation could be accomplished in half the time that it
would take for a body of emigrants, however large, to make headway from
the western coast alone. About the source of the Nile I intend to mark
out the site for my city, and then"----

"And call it," I added, "Herndonville."

"Perhaps," he said, gravely. "At all events, my name will be
inseparably connected with the enterprise; and if I can get the
steamboat started during my lifetime, I shall make a comfortable
fortune from the speculation."

"What a gigantic scheme!" I exclaimed.

"Ah," he said, complacently, "we Americans don't stick at trifles."

"Oh, marvellous practical genius of America!" I cried, "to eclipse
Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and
inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans
should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries
all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes.'"

"I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively.

But though I then stopped the conversation, yet I felt its influence
afterwards. The divine enthusiasm for _knowing_, that had inspired me
for the last three years, and had left no room for any other thought in
connection with the discovery,--this enthusiasm felt chilled and
deadened. I felt reproached that I had not thought of founding a
Pottsville or Jenkinsville, and my grand purpose seemed small and vague
and indefinite. The vivid, living thoughts that had enkindled me fell
back cold and lifeless into the tedious, reedy water. For we had now
reached the immense shallow lake that Werne has since described, and
the scenery had become flat and monotonous, as if in sympathy with the
low, marshy place to which my mind had been driven. The intricate
windings of the river, after we had passed the lake, rendered the
navigation very slow and difficult; and the swarms of flies, that
plagued us for the first time seriously, brought petty annoyances to
view more forcibly than we had experienced in all our voyage before.

After some days' pushing in this way, now driven by a strong head wind
almost back from our course, again, by a sudden change, carried rapidly
many miles on our journey,--after some days of this sailing, we arrived
at a long, low reef of rocks. The water here became so shallow and
boisterous that further attempt at sailing was impossible, and we
determined to take our boat to pieces as much as we could, and carry it
with us, while we walked along the shore of the river. I concluded,
from the marked depression in the ground we had just passed, that there
must be a corresponding elevation about here, to give the water a
sufficient head to pass over the high ground below; and the almost
cataract appearance of the river added strength to my hypothesis. We
were all four armed to the teeth, and the natives had shown themselves,
hitherto, either so friendly or so indifferent that we did not have
much apprehension on account of personal safety. So we set out with
beating hearts. Our path was exceedingly difficult to traverse, leading
chiefly among low trees and over the sharp stones that had rolled from
the river,--now close by the noisy stream, which babbled and foamed as
if it had gone mad,--now creeping on our knees through bushes, matted
with thick, twining vines,--now wading across an open morass,--now in
mimosa woods, or slipping in and out of the feathery dhelb-palms.

Since our conversation spoken of above, Herndon and I had talked little
with each other, and now usually spoke merely of the incidents of the
journey, the obstacles, etc.; we scarcely mentioned that for which we
were both longing with intense desire, and the very thoughts of which
made my heart beat quicker and the blood rush to my face. One day we
came to a place where the river made a bend of about two miles and then
passed almost parallel to our point of view. I proposed to Herndon that
he should pursue the course of the river, and that I would strike a
little way back into the country, and make a short cut across to the
other side of the bend, where he and the men would stop, pitch our
night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low
fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground,
that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that
clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by
little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in
clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled
monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing
elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a sense of real substance; it
always seems as if it must be merely a covering for something,--a sheet
thrown over the bed where a dead man is lying. And especially here did
this broad, trackless, seemingly boundless desert face me with its
blank negation, like the old obstinate "No" which Nature always returns
at first to your eager questioning. It provoked me, this staring
reticence of the scenery, and stimulated me to a sort of dogged
exertion. I think I walked steadily for about three hours over the
jagged rocks and burning sands, interspersed with a few patches of
straggling grass,--all the time up hill, with never a valley to vary
the monotonous climbing,--until the bushes began to thicken in about
the same manner as they had thinned into the desert, the grass and
herbage herded closer together under my feet, and, beating off the
ravenous sand, gradually expelled the last trace of it, a few tall
trees strayed timidly among the lower shrubbery, growing more and more
thickly, till I found myself at the border of an apparently extensive
forest. The contrast was great between the view before and behind me.
Behind lay the road I had achieved, the monotonous, toilsome, wearisome
desert, the dry, formal introduction, as it were, to my coming journey.
Before, long, cool vistas opened green through delicious shades,--a
track seemed to be almost made over the soft grass, that wound in and
out among the trees, and lost itself in interminable mazes. I plunged
into the profound depths of the still forest, and confidently followed
for path the first open space in which I found myself.

It was a strangely still wood for the tropics,--no chattering
parroquets, no screaming magpies, none of the sneering, gibing
dissonances that I had been accustomed to,--all was silent, and yet
intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in
growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed
another peculiarity,--there was little underbrush, little of the
luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African
forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the
atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of
scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. The lofty boughs
interlaced in arches overhead, and the vast dim aisles opened far down
in the tender gloom of the wood and faded slowly away in the distance.
And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant
breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young
sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of
greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree
gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and
vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some
consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of
infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action.
And it was the knowledge, the consciousness, that it was unlimited
which seemed to give such elastic energy to this strange forest. But at
all events, it was such a relief to find the everlasting negation of
the desert nullified, that my dogged resolution insensibly changed to
an irrepressible enthusiasm, which bore me lightly along, scarcely
sensible of fatigue.

The ascent had become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed
to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I
concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I
had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable
height. The wood suddenly broke off as it had begun, and, emerging from
the cool shade, I found myself in a complete wilderness of rock. Rocks
of enormous size were thrown about in apparently the wildest confusion,
on the side of what I now perceived to be a high mountain. How near the
summit I was I had no means of determining, as huge boulders blocked up
the view at a few paces ahead. I had had about eight hours' tramp, with
scarcely any cessation; yet now my excitement was too great to allow me
to pause to eat or rest. I was anxious to press on, and determine that
day the secret which I was convinced lay entombed in this sepulchre. So
again I pressed onward,--this time more slowly,--having to pick my way
among the bits of jagged granite filling up terraces sliced out of the
mountain, around enormous rocks projecting across my path,--overhanging
precipices that sheered straight down into dark abysses, (I must have
verged round to a different side from that I came up on,)--creeping
through narrow passages formed by the junction of two immense boulders.
Tearing my hands with the sharp corners of the rocks, I climbed in vain
hope of at last seeing the summit. Still rocks piled on rocks faced my
wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny
into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose
adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My
eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain
through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of
association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed
again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for
an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed
over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that
Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the
eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm,
in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending
rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty,
still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for
excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging
round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing
upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a
lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the
naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly
smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,--the Unfathomable
Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the
Nile.

For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of
its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed
impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it
waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and
so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my
vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river
in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,--through the
land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians,
--through the land where the African princes watched from
afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,--past Meroë, Thebes, Cairo;
bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay
vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the
mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious
trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the
stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing
tumult of thousands of years of life,--ever flowing, ever ebbing, with
the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ
of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake
at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose
bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with
countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little
below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined
figures, each to its simple apex,--one little point containing the
essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a
lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful
Beginnings,--to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled
threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,--had
had such an ineffable vision,--and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I
sank on my knees, lost in GOD.

After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to
take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up
the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long
all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the
great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely
remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view,
till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly
spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night,
especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long
journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal
guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing,
transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare
to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much
quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I
had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a
tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except
that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon
waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival.

"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was
really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you
seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any
lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one
yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you
know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction
of manner, "what _have_ you seen?"

"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply.

Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are
always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this,
too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to
one,--the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the
heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods
_literatim_, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself.
It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing
the discovery,--not because I did not feel the force of it, but because
my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that
it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher
level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus
inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance,
they are literally _de_-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was
so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied
astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent
congratulations.

"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your
fortune's made,--you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come
to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have
a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your
book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude.
Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!"

I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual
excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my
companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my
greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,--I
who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of
my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous
notoriety mean?

"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all!
that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"--

"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you
crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?"

He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as
such,--but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two
Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had
finished,--

"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of
this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that
steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't
wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some
kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the
mountain,--something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount
Washington, you know,--hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if
you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give
you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as
they say in Cairo, the thing would take!"

I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then
earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection
with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge
in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let
him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I
wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for
that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a
definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of
metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow
of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and
seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My
dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver.
I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly,
that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I
had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added
to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice,
at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah!
little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)--what
should I have gained, after all,--nay, what would there be gained for
any one,--if I merely announced my discovery, without----starting the
steamboat? And though I did feebly query whether I should be equally
bound to establish a communication, with pecuniary emolument, to the
North Pole, in case I discovered that, his remark, that this was the
Nile, and had nothing to do with the North Pole, was so forcible and
pertinent, that I felt ashamed of my suggestion; and upon second
thought, that idea of the dinner and procession really had a good deal
in it. I had been in New York, and knew the length of Broadway; and at
the recollection, felt flattered by the thought of being conveyed in an
open chariot drawn by four or even eight horses, with nodding plumes,
(literal ones for the horses,--only metaphorical ones for me,) past
those stately buildings fluttering with handkerchiefs, and through
streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the
riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat
little speech to the Common Council,--letting the brave show catch its
own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve
everything, she could appreciate--yes, appreciate was the word--those
who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would do it.

But, ah! how dim became the vision of that quiet lake on the summit of
the mountain! How that vivid lightning-revelation faded into obscurity!
Was Pharaoh again ascending his fatal chariot?

The next day we started for the ascent. We determined to follow the
course of the river backwards around the bend and set out from my
former starting-point, as any other course might lead us into a
hopeless dilemma. We had no difficulty in finding the sandy plain, and
soon reached landmarks which I was sure were on the right road; but a
tramp of six or eight hours--still in the road I had passed
before--brought us no nearer to our goal. In short, we wandered three
days in that desert, utterly in vain. My heart sunk within me at every
failure; with sickening anxiety I scanned the horizon at every point,
but nothing was visible but stunted bushes and white pebbles glistening
in the glaring sand.

The fourth day came,--and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in
his steady, immobile voice,--

"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There
is no Nile up this way,--and our water-skins are almost dry. We had
better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it.
If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for
converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well
adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a
_desideratum_. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it
deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice
was the original use of those structures."

"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed.

"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world
suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to
claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,--especially
when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these
pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?"

I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but
I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our
failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of
him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! _I_ was the sinner,
and not he; for he _could_ not see, because he was born blind, while
_I_ fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that,
were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had
not dreamed. So we parted.

But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert.
The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate
fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe
into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on
the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to
return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a
merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had
nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that
fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but
the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength,
had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its
fellows,--falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the
dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting
of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always
irretrievable,--if a prize once lost can never again be found.




AN EXPERIENCE.


A common spring of water, sudden welling,
Unheralded, from some unseen impelling,
Unrecognized, began his life alone.
A rare and haughty vine looked down above him,
Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him,
And wreathed herself about his curb of stone.

Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling,
To feel no life but in her fond beguiling,
To see no world but through her veil of green!
And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing,
To find one theme his heart forever praising,--
The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen!

I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer;
The water rose to meet me, ever nearer;
The water passed one day this curb of stone.
Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings,
Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings?
I only know I live my life alone.

Alone? The smiling fountain seems to chide me,--
The constant fountain, rooted still beside me,
And speaking wistful words I toil to hear:
Ah, how alone! The mystic words confound me;
And still the awakened fountain yearns beyond me,
Streaming to some unknown I may not near.

"Oh, list," he cries, "the wondrous voices calling!
I hear a hundred streams in silver falling;
I feel the far-off pulses of the sea.
Oh, come!" Then all my length beside him faring,
I strive and strain for growth, and soon, despairing,
I pause and wonder where the wrong can be.

Were we not equal? Nay, I stooped, from climbing,
To his obscure, to list the golden chiming,
So low to all the world, so plain to me.
_Now_,'twere some broad fair streamlet, onward tending
Should mate with him, and both, serenely blending,
Move in a grand accordance to the sea.

I tend not so; I hear no voices calling;
I have no care for rivers silver-falling;
I hate the far-off sea that wrought my pain.
Oh for some spell of change, my life new-aiming!
Or best, by spells his too much life reclaiming,
Hold all within the fountain-curb again!




ABOUT THIEVES.


It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the
Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made
for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the
king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be
cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so
that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and
pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras
of the time, became marked men.

Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the
police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way
room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the
faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting
part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand
at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or
entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right,
or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in
putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain
citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has
endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of
moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces.

We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We
have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the
thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate
thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does
not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius
scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it
is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater
number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble
character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the
human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are
written aright.

Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration,
"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not
steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that
there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet
even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer,
recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight
over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and
for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute,
intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks
plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our
thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus.

"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great
quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or
nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of
stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder,
forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones
so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one.

"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the
chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his
two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having
clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his
directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He
accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to
the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the
stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great
quantity of treasure.

"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some
vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals
were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his
opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently
diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made
and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when
the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he
went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving,
therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his
brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as
possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should
ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was
advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking
with him his brother's head.

"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at
seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the
chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this
perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the
wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and
bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing
commiseration for the spectacle.

"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and,
coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he
could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of
his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king
and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving
son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her,
he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses,
and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed
the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out,
he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn
to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and
caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger,
railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at
last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the
sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them
one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all
became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell
asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body
of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed
her injunctions.

"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the
thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last,
sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be
made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would
discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the
palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter
in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the
Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the
Egyptians."

The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every
age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so
much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that
that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction,
and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are
under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is
responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal
professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him
informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the
owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves
for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and
manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being
given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a
discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should
undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of
thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to
be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or,
having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the
government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom
the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched.

Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is
the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant
examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of
the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the
larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial
"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard.

Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days,
weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in
disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon."
He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to
have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of
Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently,
soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he
was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck
upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping,
he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from
feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it
with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had
tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had
accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him.
Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the
richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious
stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern
prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and
departed as silently as he had come.

In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery.
Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became
satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince.
There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and
told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once
took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in
whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of
truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step,
till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many
provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough,
according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the
salt saved him.

Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a
crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to
recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of
conscience. Thus he told it:--

"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me
to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan
chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop
was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I
restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it,
and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered
a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking
blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he
might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the
honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the
splendor she wished me to enjoy."

These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend
to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's
having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_
that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks
in the crowd," says Byron,

  "Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"--

and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true.
Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is
the smartest man present, in all probability. According to
Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his
countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to
his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact
proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does
or does not "regret the necessity."

And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as
elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority
of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost
any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse
circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair
ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of
thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the
New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate"
burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a
German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land:
has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute
of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without
any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another
"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner,
very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the
thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he
is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has
more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one
to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor
almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon
intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors.

This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white
shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white
neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the
man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The
picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the
large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm
comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though
he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and
very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his
place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original,
erratic, or _outré_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the
fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany
would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the
mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages
attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men
from mere roguery."

Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth
consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two
or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not
favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily
upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed
through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief.
Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply
upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could
keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing
whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his
fellows.

There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to
astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and
elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his
principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one.

"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by
his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps
of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a
little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the
current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a
genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval,
rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a
nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and
mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a
bank-president.

The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries,
and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping
in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness
that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young
ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up
the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent
gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a
gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with
interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of
telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that
the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as
calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing
to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with
a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment
more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would
have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether
the bank-president was or was not suspected;--

"All I can say is, that he had the money."

Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little
something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the
cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and
all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the
vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a
good pickpocket.

It was said of Themistocles, that

        "he, with all his greatness,
Could ne'er command his hands."

Now this man is a sort of Themistocles. He is a man of wealth, and can
snap his fingers at Fortune; can sneer that little sneer of his at
things generally, and be none the worse; but what he cannot do is, to
shake off an incubus that sits upon his life in the shape of old Habit
severe as Fate. This man, with apparently all that is necessary in the
world to keep one at peace with it, and to ease declining life with
comforts, and cheer with the serener pleasures, is condemned to keep
his peace in a state of continual uncertainty; for, seeing a purse
temptingly exposed, he is physically incapable of refraining from the
endeavor to take it. What devil is there in his finger-ends that brings
this about? Is this part of the curse of crime,--that, having once
taken up with it, a man cannot cut loose, but, with all the disposition
to make his future life better, he must, as by the iron links of
Destiny, be chained to his past?

There is a Chinese thief-story somewhat in point here. A man who was
very poor stole from his neighbor, who was very rich, a single duck. He
cooked and ate it, and went to bed happy; but before morning he felt
all over his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation
that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had
sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for
judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,--when he was informed
by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from
him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose
duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his
neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the
length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile
attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our
friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means
of cure, when he was cured.

And this good, easy man, who is wealthy with the results of
pocket-picking;--that well-cut black coat, that satin waistcoat, that
elegantly-adjusted scarf and well-arranged collar, they are all
duck-feathers; but the feather that itches is that irreclaimable
tendency of the fingers to find their way into other people's pockets.
Pity, however, the man who cannot be at ease till he has received a
reproof from every one whose pocket he has picked through a long life
in London and in New York city.

The amount of mental activity that gleams out upon you from these walls
is something wonderful; evidence of sufficient thinking to accomplish
almost any intellectual task; thought-life crowded with what
experience!

The "confidence" swindlers are mostly Americans,--so that, the
pickpockets being mostly English, you may see some national character
in crime, aside from the tendency of races. The Englishman is
conservative,--sticks to traditions,--picks and plods in the same old
way in which ages have picked and plodded before him. Exactly like the
thief of ancient Athens, he

                            "walks
The street, and picks your pocket as he talks
On some pretence with you";

at the same time, with courage and self-reliance admirably English,
risking his liberty on his skill. The American illuminates his practice
with an intellectual element, faces his man, "bidding a gay defiance to
mischance," and gains his end easily by some acute device that merely
transfers to himself, with the knowledge and consent of the owner, the
subtile principle of property.

This "confidence" game is a thing of which the ancients appear to have
known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may
have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its
phases,--in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit
and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the
world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A
lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently
upon woman's vanity, illustrates the French practice.

One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly in her _loge_ at the
theatre, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly
_vis-à-vis_ to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed
peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid
bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds.
She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful
manner presented himself at the door of her _loge_; he delivered a
message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of
the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What
could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity,
the tradesman's wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the
gentleman, who bowed himself out, and left her--as you have doubtless
divined he would--abundant leisure to learn of her loss.

Early the next morning, however, an officer from the department of
police called at this lady's house. The night before, a thief had been
arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many
valuables,--among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent, he had
told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the articles belonged,
and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If
Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only
necessary to intrust it to the officer, and, if it were found to
compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home,
and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was
given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official
dignity, the officer took his leave, and at the next _café_ joined his
fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The
bracelets were not found to compare properly, and therefore were not
returned.

These faces are true to the nationality,--all over American. They are
much above the average in expression,--lighted with clear, well-opened
eyes, intelligent and perceptive; most have an air of business
frankness well calculated to deceive. There is one capacious,
thought-freighted forehead. All are young.

No human observer will fail to be painfully struck with the number of
boys whose faces are here exposed. There are boys of every age, from
five to fifteen, and of every possible description, good, bad, and
indifferent. The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers
out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small
snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily
moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most
ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure
of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in
this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with
unforgetting and unforgiving glances. With many of these boys, this is
a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young
indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers,
bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already
broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put
through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of
second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on
almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively
thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all,
perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first
agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some
encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all
the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan."

Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there
happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One
of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of
intercession, and said,--

"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my
expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by
granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.'

"The king frowned at this request, and said,--

"'The light of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin;
instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To
smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of
its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the
water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of a willow.'

"When the vizier heard this, he applauded the king's understanding, and
assented that what he had pronounced was unanswerable.

"'Yet, nevertheless,' he said, 'as the boy, if bred among the thieves,
would have taken their manners, so is your servant hopeful that he
might receive instruction in the society of upright men; for he is
still a boy, and it is written, that every child is born in the faith
of Islam, and his parents corrupt him. The son of Noah, associated with
the wicked, lost his power of prophecy; the dog of the Seven Sleepers,
following the good, became a man.'

"Then others of the courtiers joined in the intercession, and the king
said,--

"'I have assented, but I do not think it well.'

"They bred the youth in indulgence and affluence, and appointed an
accomplished tutor to educate him, and he became learned and gained
great applause in the sight of every one. The king smiled when the
vizier spoke of this, and said,--

"'Thou hast been nourished by our milk, and hast grown with us; who
afterwards gave thee intelligence that thy father was a wolf?'

"A few years passed;--a company of the vagrants of the neighborhood
were near; they connected themselves with the boy; a league of
association was formed; and, at an opportunity, the boy destroyed the
vizier and his children, carried off vast booty, and fixed himself in
the place of his father in the cavern of the robbers. The king bit the
hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection, and said,--

"'How can any one make a good sword from bad iron? The worthless, O
Philosopher, does not, by instruction, become worthy. Rain, though not
otherwise than benignant, produces tulips in gardens and rank weeds in
nitrous ground.'"

Yet, notwithstanding Sadi and some other wise ones, here, as thieves,
are the faces of boys that cannot be naturally vicious,--boys of good
instincts, beyond all possible question,--and that only need a mother's
hand to smooth back the clustering hair from the forehead, to discover
the future residence of plentiful and upright reason. The face of a
boy, now in Sing Sing for burglary, and who bears a name which over the
continent of North America is identified with the ideas of large
combination and enterprise, is especially noticeable for the clear
eyes, and frank, promising look.

That tale of Sadi will do well enough when Aesop tells it of a
serpent;--he, indeed, can change his skin and be a serpent still; but
when the old Sufi, or any one else, tells it of a boy, let us doubt.

Think of the misery that may be associated with all this,--that this
represents! In this Gallery are the faces of many men; some are
handsome, most of them more or less human. It cannot be that they all
began wrongly,--that their lives were all poisoned at the
fountain-head. No,--here are some that came from what are called good
families; many others of them had homes, and you may still see some
lingering love of it in an air of settled sadness,--they were misled in
later life. Think of the mothers who have gone down, in bitter, bitter
sorrow, to the grave, with some of the lineaments we see around before
their mind's eye at the latest moment! Oh, the circumstances under
which some of these faces have been conjured up by the strong will of
love! Think of the sisters, living along with a hidden heart-ache,
nursing in secret the knowledge, that somewhere in the world were those
dear to them, from whom they were shut out by a bar-sinister terribly
real, and for whose welfare, with all the generous truth of a sister's
feeling, they would barter everything, yet who were in an unending
danger! Think of them, with this skeleton behind the door of their
hearts, fearful at every moment! Does it seem good in the scheme of
existence, or a blot there, that those who are themselves innocent, but
who are yet the real sufferers, whether punishment to the culprit fall
or fail, should be made thus poignantly miserable? We know nothing.

It is said in a certain Arabic legend, that, while Moses was on Mount
Sinai, the Lord instructed him in the mysteries of his providence; and
Moses, having complained of the impunity of vice and its success in the
world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord led him to
a rock which jutted from the mountain, and where he could overlook the
vast plain of the Desert stretching at his feet.

On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He awoke, and,
leaving behind him a bag of pearls, sprang into the saddle and rapidly
disappeared from the horizon. Another Arab came to the oasis; he
discovered the pearls, took them, and vanished in the opposite
direction.

Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his steps wearily
toward the shady spot; he laid himself down, and fell asleep. But
scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was rudely aroused from his
slumber; the young Arab had returned, and demanded his pearls. The
hoary man replied, that he had not taken them. The other grew enraged,
and accused him of theft. He swore that he had not seen the treasure;
but the other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his
sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell
lifeless on the earth.

"O Lord! is this just?" exclaimed Moses, with terror.

"Be silent! Behold, this man, whose blood is now mingling with the
waters of the Desert, many years ago, secretly, on the same spot,
murdered the father of the youth who has now slain him. His crime
remained concealed from men; but vengeance is mine: I will repay."




THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

[Concluded.]


The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more quickly than Ivy had
supposed it would. The reason for this may be found in the fact that
her thoughts were very busily occupied. She was more silent than usual,
so much so that her father one day said to her,--"Ivy, I haven't heard
you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't talk either. What's
the matter?"

"Do I look as if anything was the matter?" and the face she turned upon
him was so radiant, that even the father's heart was satisfied.

Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service to Mr. Clerron,
that she could give him pleasure,--though she could in no wise
understand how it was. She went over every event since her acquaintance
with him; she felt how much he had done for her, and how much he had
been to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had been of any
use to him. She only knew that she was the most ignorant and
insignificant girl in the whole world, and that he was the best and
greatest man. As this was very nearly the same conclusion at which she
had arrived at an early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said
that her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable
results.

The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return Ivy sat down to prepare
her lessons, and for the first time remembered that she had left her
books in Mr. Clerron's library. She was not sorry to have so good an
excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was
not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod
slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr.
Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always
before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active
demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been
so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance
and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her
serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently the
theory.

Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library without
ringing,--but, not finding the books, proceeded in search of Mrs. Simm.
That notable lady was sitting behind a huge pile of clean clothes,
sorting and mending to her heart's content. She looked up over her
spectacles at Ivy's bright "good morning," and invited her to come in.
Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen her books. To be
sure she had, like the good housekeeper that she was. "You'll find them
in the book-case, second shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come
in, for I've had something on my mind that I've felt to tell you this
long while."

Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and waited for her to
speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in no hurry to speak. She dropped her
glasses; Ivy picked them up and handed them to her. She muttered
something about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to
buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the subject at
once, abruptly exclaimed,--

"Miss Ivy, you're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent as a lamb.
That's why I'm going to talk to you as I do. I know, if you were my
child, I should want somebody to do the same by you."

Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a moment's pause,
Mrs. Simm continued,--

"I've seen how things have been going on for some time; but my mouth
was shut, though my eyes were open. I didn't know but maybe I'd better
speak to your mother about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she'll
think it is a great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough,
there'll be a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I'd just tell you
what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and will take it all
right. Now you must promise me not to get mad."

"No," gasped Ivy.

"I like you a sight. It's no flattery, but the truth, to say I think
you're as pretty-behaved a girl as you'll find in a thousand. And all
the time you've been here, I never have known you do a thing you hadn't
ought to. And Mr. Clerron thinks so too, and there's the trouble, You
see, dear, he's a man, and men go on their ways and like women, and
talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not meaning to do them any
hurt,--and enjoy their company of an evening, and go about their own
business in the morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at
home, and brood over it, and think there's something in it, and build a
fine air-castle,--and when they find it's all smoke, they mope and pine
and take on. Now that's what I don't want you to do. Perhaps you'd
think I'd better have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it wouldn't signify
the head of a pin. He'd either put on the Clerron look and scare you to
death and not say a word, or else he'd hold it up in such a ridiculous
way as to make you think it was ridiculous yourself. And I thought I'd
put you on your guard a little, so as you needn't fall in love with
him. You'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young girl like
you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet,--and
nobody could be modester or sweeter than you,--and think a man loved
you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr.
Clerron means to do anything wrong. He'd be perfectly miserable
himself, if he thought he'd led you on. There a'n't a more honorable
man every way in the whole country. Now, Miss Ivy, it's all for your
good I say this. I don't find fault with you, not a bit. It's only to
save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and
see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful
thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got
a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and
forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making
pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes
they get sp'iled for life."

Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when Mrs. Simm had
finished, she said, with a sudden accession of womanly dignity that
surprised the good housekeeper,--

"Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak in this way to me.
If you suppose I am not quite able to take care of myself, I assure you
you are much mistaken."

"Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you wouldn't be mad."

"And I have kept my promise. I am not mad."

"No, but you answer up short like, and that isn't what I thought of
you, Ivy Geer."

Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower tone, and at any
rate she would have had to do it soon; for her fortitude gave way, and
she burst into a flood of tears. She was not, by any means, a heroine,
and could not put on the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world.

"Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!" said Mrs. Simm,
soothingly. "I can't bear to see you."

"I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr.
Clerron or anybody else," sobbed Ivy, "and I don't know what should
make you think so."

"Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you needn't."

"Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel Gabriel!"

"Oh, don't talk so, dear; he's no more than man, after all; but still,
you know, he's no fit match for you. To say nothing of his being older
and all that, I don't think it's the right place for you. Your father
and mother are very nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better
neighbors, and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and they've
brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you know it's nothing
against you nor them that you a'n't used to splendor, and you wouldn't
take to it natural like. You'd get tired of that way of life, and want
to go back to the old fashions, and you'd most likely have to leave
your father and mother; for it's noways probable Mr. Clerron will stay
here always; and when he goes back to the city, think what a dreary
life you'd have betwixt his two proud sisters, on the one hand,--to be
sure, there's no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a
tailor, and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich, and gave
all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father, he was a lawyer, and
he got rich by speculation, and so the two girls always had on their
high-heeled boots; but Mr. Clerron, he always laughs at them, and
brings up "the grand-paternal shop," as he calls it, and provokes them
terribly, I know. Well, that's neither here nor there; but, as I was
saying, here you'll have them on the one side, and all the fine ladies
on the other, and a great house and servants, and parties to see to,
and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy, you'd die in three years; and if you know
when you're well off, you'll stay at home, and marry and settle down
near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it's a bad thing both for the
man and the woman, when she marries above her."

"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?"

"Certainly, child, if I can."

"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude
to it in the most distant manner?"

"Miss Ivy, now,"--began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly.

"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot
imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think
of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I
suppose--indeed, I know--that you did it because you thought you ought;
but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is
there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or
reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much
obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning."

"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"--

But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of
clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed
vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work,
though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty.

"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and
huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands
of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part."

Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and
beautiful,--the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as
aërially,--the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a
melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on
the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed
so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself
home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother
she was tired and had the headache, which was true,--though, if she had
said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did
what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar
circumstances,--made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to
bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot
assuage!

When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy
was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept
unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and
desponding than her life had ever before known,--tears of shame and
indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had
suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true,
that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose
threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive,
were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret
chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,--a chamber
whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole
future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and
dream away the hours,--had been rudely entered, and thrown violently
open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had
become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though
needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered
herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words
were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him
moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her
inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain,
she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life
was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,--their unchanging
love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and
watchfulness,--and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other
sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again
came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very
thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been
carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and,
unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night
flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling
form,--but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where
her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping
infancy,--kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through
love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and
comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into
their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to
her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be
enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And
she arose strengthened and comforted.

All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge in the little
sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household matters, only looked in
upon her occasionally, and, as the eyes were always closed, did not
speak, thinking her asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little
sprites flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming,
singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then another tread softly
entered, and she knew her dear old father had drawn a chair close to
her, and was looking into her face. Tears came into her eyes, her lip
involuntarily quivered, and then she felt the pressure of
his----his!--surely that was not her father's kiss! She started up. No,
no! that was not her father's face bending over her,--not her father's
eyes smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with a
deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and for a moment
all the experience and suffering and resolutions of the last night were
as if they had never been. Only for a moment, and then with a strong
effort she remembered the impassable gulf.

"A pretty welcome home you have given me!" said Mr. Clerron, lightly.

He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but did not wish to
distress her by seeming to notice it.

"I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting every moment will
bring you,--and lo! here you are lying, doing nothing but look pale and
pretty as hard as you can."

Ivy smiled, but did not consider it prudent to speak.

"I found your books, however, and have brought them to you. You thought
you would escape a lesson finely, did you not? But you see I have
outwitted you."

"Yes,--I went for the books yesterday," said Ivy, "but I got talking
with Mrs. Simm and forgot them."

"Ah!" he replied, looking somewhat surprised. "I did not know Mrs. Simm
could be so entertaining. She must have exerted herself. Pray, now, if
it would not be impertinent, upon what subject did she hold forth with
eloquence so overpowering that everything else was driven from your
mind? The best way of preserving apples, I dare swear, or the
superiority of pickled grapes to pickled cucumbers."

"No," said Ivy, with the ghost of an other smile,--"upon various
subjects; but not those. How do you do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a
pleasant visit to the city?"

"Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not had a remarkably
pleasant visit, I am obliged to you. Have I the pleasure of seeing you
quite well, Miss Geer,--quite fresh and buoyant?"

The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely the opposite
effect intended.

"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,
  How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
  And I sae weary fu' o' care?"

is the of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy thought of Mr. Clerron,
rich, learned, elegant, happy, on the current of whose life she only
floated a pleasant ripple,--and of herself, poor, plain, awkward,
ignorant, to whom he was the life of life, the all in all. I would not
have you suppose this passed through her mind precisely as I have
written it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a pellmell
sort of way; but they got through just as effectually. Now, if Ivy had
been content to let her muscles remain perfectly still, her face might
have given no sign of the confusion within; but, with a foolish
presumption, she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the
little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob. Her whole
frame convulsed with weeping and trying not to weep, he forced her
gently back on the pillow, and, bending low, whispered softly,--

"Ivy, what is it?"

"Oh, don't ask me!--please, don't! Please, go away!" murmured the poor
child.

"I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little
anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,--and when
I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something
weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe,
that I am your true friend,--and if you would confide in me, perhaps I
could bring you comfort. It would at least relieve you to let me help
you bear the burden."

The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable that Ivy
would have assented to his proposition; but the welcome entrance of her
mother prevented the necessity of replying.

"Oh, you're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might come in, though I
thought you wouldn't be. Slept well this morning, didn't you, deary, to
make up for last night?"

"No, mamma, I haven't been asleep."

"Crying, my dear? Well, now, that's a pretty good one! Nervous she is,
Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least thing ails her; and she
didn't sleep a wink last night, which is a bad thing for the
nerves,--and Ivy generally sleeps like a top. She walked over to your
house yesterday, and when she got home she was entirely beat
out,--looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why it was,
for the walk couldn't have hurt her. She's always dancing round at
home. I don't think she's been exactly well for four or five days. Her
father and I both thought she'd been more quiet like than usual."

The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not unobserved by Mr.
Clerron. A thought came into his mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's
entrance, and he now expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped
that she would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and, with
a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took his leave.

"I wonder if Mrs. Simm _has_ been putting her foot in it!" thought he,
as he stalked home rather more energetically than was his custom.

That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching muslins, when
Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised that he was gone to the farm, and
had looked for his return with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face
that something was wrong.

"Mrs. Simm," he began, somewhat abruptly, but not disrespectfully, "may
I beg your pardon for inquiring what Ivy Geer talked to you about,
yesterday?"

"Oh, good Lord! She ha'n't told you, has she?" cried Mrs. Simm,--her
fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The
embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to
the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every
lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the
collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,--

"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I
have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday.
If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you
would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject."

Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America
is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a
scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy,
supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a
swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands
together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure
I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation,
a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor
saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and
not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her
for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age
when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters,
particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own
judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble.


"Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em," soliloquized Mrs. Simm,
when the door closed behind him. "If ever I meddle with a
courting-business again, my name a'n't Martha Simm. No, they may go to
Halifax, whoever they be, 'fore ever I'll lift a finger."

It is a great pity that the world generally has not been brought to
make the same wise resolution.

One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered the
question so often wrung from man in his bewildered gropings, "What
shall I do?" Every day brought her teacher and friend to comfort,
amuse, and strengthen. Every morning she resolved to be on her guard,
to remember the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the silken
cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul, and binding her
closer and closer to him. She thought she might die, and the thought
gave her a sudden joy. Death would solve the problem at once. If only a
few weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on him, and
give herself up to him, and wait in heaven for all rough places to be
made plain. But Ivy did not die. Youth and nursing and herb-tea were
too strong for her, and the color came back to her cheek and the
languor went out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but to
resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say whether she was
more glad or sorry at seeming to see this necessity. She knew her
danger, and it was very fascinating. She did not look into the far-off
future; she only prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course
was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own judgment alone;
and her judgment was founded on inexperience, which is not a
trustworthy basis.

A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not resume her old
habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons just as perfectly at home
as she had ever done. Just as punctual to the appointed hour, she went
to recite them; but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's
threshold than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered
neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to go through her
recitation as usual, and, day after day, she hesitated, stammered, and
utterly failed. His gentle assistance only increased her embarrassment.
This she was too proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful
effort, she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and
exclaimed,--

"Mr. Clerron, I will not recite any more!"

The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way to paleness. He
saw that she was under strong excitement, and quietly replied,--

"Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not quite well yet,
and must not try to do too much. We will commence here to-morrow."

"No, Sir,--I shall not recite any more at all."

"Till to-morrow."

"Never any more!"

There was a moment's pause.

"You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days you will recite as
well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth, because you have been ill, and
forgotten a little, to give up studying! And what is to become of my
laurels, pray,--all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?"

"I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not recite."

"Why not?"

His look became serious.

"Because I cannot. I do not think it best,--and--and I will not"

Another pause.

"Ivy, do you not like your teacher?"

"No, Sir. _I hate you!_"

The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang up and stood erect
before him, her eyes on fire, and every nerve quivering with intense
excitement He was shocked and startled. It was a new phase of her
character,--a new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the
window. If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there would
have been a revelation to her also. But she was too highly excited to
notice anything. He came back to her and spoke in a low voice,--

"Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect."

He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done before. She shook
it off passionately.

"Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because"--

"Because I wanted you to love me?"

"No, Sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only wretchedness. I
have never been happy since the miserable day I first saw you."

"Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my constant
endeavor to do."

"No, Sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored to do. You have
taught me. You have given me knowledge and thought, and showed me the
source of knowledge. But I had better have been the ignorant girl you
found me. You have taken from me what I can never find again. I have
made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid, I know,--but I was
happy and contented; and now I am wretched and miserable and wicked.
You have come between me and my home and my father and mother;--between
me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for the future."

"And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past and my
future;--yet not thus. You shut out from my heart all the sorrow and
vexation and strife that have clouded my life, and fill it with your
own dear presence. You come between me and my future, because, in
looking forward, I see only you. I should have known better. There is
a gulf between us; but if I could make you happy"--

"I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is a gulf between us.
I saw it while you were gone. I measured it and fathomed it. I shall
not leap across. Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly
on mine."

"It is too late for that, Ivy,--too late now. But you are not to blame,
my child. Little sunbeam that you are, I will not cloud you. Go shine
upon other lives as you have shone upon mine! light up other hearths as
you have mine! and I will bless you forever, though mine be left
desolate."

He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy could not read.
Her passion was gone. She hesitated a moment, then went to his side and
laid her hand softly on his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in
his eyes as he turned them upon her.

"Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you."

"My dear, you never can understand me."

"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might
understand whether I have vexed you."

"You have not vexed me."

"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I
shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be,
and you do not look as if you were."

If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but
she was, so she did.

"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own
preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or
how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you,
however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical
notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it
again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you."

"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?"

"Can there be anything else?"

"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for
that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me
so."

Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a
corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the
danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the
truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence.
She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how
near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before
she knew it.

Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands,
and drew her towards him.

"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find
out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you
almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my
heart and keep you here forever?"

"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself.

"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far
removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness
to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say
or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very
different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and
loveliness. Still I would do it, if--Tell me, Ivy, does it give you
pain or pleasure?"

Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and
knelt on it before him,--then took his hands, as he had before held
hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,--

"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?"

"I am, Ivy. I do love you."

"How do you love me?"

"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me."

"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs.
Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your
kindness and nobleness,--you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice
your happiness to mine?"

"No, Ivy,--nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I
think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared
not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that
you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my
whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours."

Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing
though it was.

"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I
can never ask anything more."

"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask
much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you."

"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I
not given it,--long, long before you asked it, before you even cared
for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being,
centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say
this?--maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have
loved you, though only to lose you,--and to be loved by you is glory
enough for all my future."

For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed.
I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever
been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to
forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not.

Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus
you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily
freed herself. (Query, from what?)

"Never!"

"Ivy!"

"Never!" more firmly than before.

"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?"

There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed
before it.

"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so
much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the
same."

"What is it? Who put it there?"

"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me."

"Mrs. Simm be--! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to
mention that again,--never to think of it; and you must obey me."

"I will try to obey you in that."

"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will
not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,--so lightly you
shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make
me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you
draw back? Why do you not come to me?"

"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and
stay at home."

"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go.
Wait a little."

"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy,
bursting into tears. "I _must_ leave you. Don't make the way so
difficult."

"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it."

His tones were low, but determined.

"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?"

"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not
made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I
cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be
ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I
should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,--I would rather
keep your love in my own heart and my own home."

"Ivy, can you be happy without me?"

"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful
memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work
with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I
shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I
shall not cease to love you in heaven."

"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach
heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as
you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want
to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such
things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do _you_
respect or care for wealth and station? Do _you_ consider a woman your
superior because she wears a finer dress than you?"

"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and
you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because
you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. _I_ don't want to be despised by
those who are above me only in station."

"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your
happiness and mine to your pride?"

"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble,
but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that
I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised
me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to
lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long
keep your love."

"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are
young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to
you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At
first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the
time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn
what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself
the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with
your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and
acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men
always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and
your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so
much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no
need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us."

"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you
and your friends"--

"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they
shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"--

"I was going to say"--

"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it
again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your
honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God
joins together let not man or woman put asunder."

"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning
to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should
be wrong,--if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness
alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed."

Again their relative positions changed, and _remained so_ for a long
while.

"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have
I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since
you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and
my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear
head"----etc., etc., etc., etc.

But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor
have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I
said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have
not married them.

It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June
evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken
curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale
and and still,--very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side,
bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his
arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly
ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the
silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled
maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,--knelt Felix Clerron;
and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes
slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his
happiness was complete.

In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat
Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause
of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying,
writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous
baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering,
in a dazed, bewildered way,--"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it?
No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!"




THE PORTRAIT.


In a lumbering attic room,
  Where, for want of light and air,
Years had died within the gloom,
  Leaving dead dust everywhere,
      Everywhere,
Hung the portrait of a lady,
    With a face so fair!

Time had long since dulled the paint,
  Time, which all our arts disguise,
And the features now were faint,
  All except the wondrous eyes,
  Wondrous eyes,
Ever looking, looking, looking,
  With such sad surprise!

As man loveth, man had loved
  Her whose features faded there;
As man mourneth, man had mourned,
  Weeping, in his dark despair,
    Bitter tears,
When she left him broken-hearted
    To his death of years.

Then for months the picture bent
  All its eyes upon his face,
Following his where'er they went,--
  Till another filled the place
    In its stead,--
Till the features of the living
  Did outface the dead.

Then for years it hung above
  In that attic dim and ghast,
Fading with the fading love,
  Sad reminder of the past,--
    Save the eyes,
Ever looking, ever looking,
  With such sad surprise!

Oft the distant laughter's sound
  Entered through the cobwebbed door,
And the cry of children found
  Dusty echoes from the floor
    To those eyes,
Ever looking, ever looking,
  With their sad surprise.

Once there moved upon the stair
  Olden love-steps mounting slow,
But the face that met him there
  Drove him to the depths below;
    For those eyes
Through his soul seemed looking, looking,
  All their sad surprise.

From that day the door was nailed
  Of that memory-haunted room,
And the portrait hung and paled
  In the dead dust and the gloom,--
    Save the eyes,
Ever looking, ever looking,
  With such sad surprise!




A LEAF

FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY.


One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October,
A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston
were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded
the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in
Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked
off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder
giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and
ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have
assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in
Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope,
to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the
entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops,
forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs,
cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily
walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the
art of limner or sculptor.

For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been
indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of
periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and
higher than the brief and barren résumé of current events to which the
Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and
affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and
artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of
publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention
to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature
rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or
_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of
the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this
class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached
the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a
host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced
in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741,
Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and
Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but
only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford
published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political
State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these
unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar
attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made
its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian
History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New
England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and
reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit,
among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out
of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and
Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New
England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious
Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against
all Extremes."

[Footnote 1: It is said that as many as twenty thousand copies of
particular numbers of the "Spectator" were sold.]

It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named
were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they
were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical
Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743,"
appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under
the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley,
Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the
head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us,
perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the
patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer
of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument
against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and,
more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render
immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as
the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to
have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas
calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in
its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then
published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of
the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the
resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always
rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical
excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the
contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post,"
"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number
contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The
scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not
vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and
contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have
recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The
novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and
inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous,
_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as
a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and
Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of
subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of
periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the
subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as
became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all
creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current
incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news
appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical
Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side
with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of
events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century,
developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it
were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as
circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses,
excrescences, and absurdities upon them,--crude lumps of mingled fact
and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of
the historian.

The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among
the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly
known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose
"The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely
and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with
"A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is
followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743,
entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province
of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in
Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders
in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land;
as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and
accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the
Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors"
are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as
"Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must
have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the
seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of
"Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a
reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an
Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston,
July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many
Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are
likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale
took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established
religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in
"The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going
during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a
neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the
Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or
ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent
number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D.,
who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines,
two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices
are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of
Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and
pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty
books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox
standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their
connections.

The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just
concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in
the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some
curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different
councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically
accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be
safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils,
which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of
fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened
first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally
"at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July
10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of
Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the
hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We
have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically
observe,--"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us
in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have
given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will
continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to
serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to
have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of
rum,--in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,--
"to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable
mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor,
we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the
hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the
disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more
Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not
expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are
a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other
People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to
procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come
unexpectedly."

But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under
various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture
of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the
British crown,--an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely
indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the
courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to
find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine.
The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening
Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton";
which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton,
of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that
Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must
necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important
Place,"--from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool
and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from
a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the
Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:--"Glory
to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this
Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all
Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made
terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. ... Such a fine City will be
an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another
example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at
Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22,
1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender
of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the
pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the
great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut,
representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by
"Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still
farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley,
Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the
Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was
observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His
Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful
Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City
and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton
to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings
at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor
was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous
flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if
not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of
description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is
kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months.

But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic
affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from
overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and
the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months
later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly,
recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant
campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de
Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,--of the battle of
Dettingen in June, 1743,--of the declaration of war between the kings
of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great
Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the
citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might
be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether
"great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb
before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily
terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the
tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in
the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars
of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the
battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry
quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done
three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London
coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army
is put at "two thousand,"--although "the Rebels by their own Accounts
make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal
list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the
favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally
intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon
parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,--the return
of the ordnance and stores captured,--names of the killed and wounded
officers of the rebel army,--various congratulatory addresses,--an
extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,--an
account of the subsequent movement of the forces,--various anecdotes of
the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,--etc., are given with
much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced
by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday,
3d":--"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the
Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness
the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns
at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were
those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we
had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are
also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of
Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this
ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from
which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very
original device for the recovery of freedom,--one, we think, which, to
most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and
"extraordinary Invention":--

"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746.

"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make
their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention,
as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a
Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons,
thus:--They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the
Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at
the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the
Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent
Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it
was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to
renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees.
This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work
together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels;
who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard,
and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered
that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the
same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief
when struck upon it in this Manner."

About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied
with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the
Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and
Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied,
with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London
Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly
ironical preface:--"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the
British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the
Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall
give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts
from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and
Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every
Respect answer the same Intentions."

The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of
Electricity,--an interest which was of course much augmented in this
country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the
printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical
Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning
Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the
experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising
Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of
electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric
Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at
which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same
Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that
things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something
over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many
hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only
limit which we feel willing to set to its extension.

At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet
lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New
Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of
Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from
these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and
known as "Franklin Stoves":--"By the Help of this saving Invention our
Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm
themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their
Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered,
(which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do."

That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of
which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who
commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:--"I have the
good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a
neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious
Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild
Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a
beautiful Chequer."

The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for
an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of
the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been
unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler,"
"Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken.
It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls
set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen
Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In
this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their
own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both
warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly
cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the
Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should
have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though
falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all
Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they
set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and
sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it
should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd
accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on
that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she
first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and
was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War.
Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a
little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd
that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its
Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat
the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the
British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in
Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall,
and almost that great General's Glory."

To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same
volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of
Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is
deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but
little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be
occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature
of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has
no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does
not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl
is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so
far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and
Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be
lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by
it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it,
if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach,
Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling,
Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after
Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms
are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have
in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner.

"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did
it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint,
it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm
Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which
hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar,
biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks
the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling
light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In
this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become
weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so
poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child
dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to
the People in general."

Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his
fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists,
satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the
approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to
meteorological science,--"_Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications._
As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this
Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken
Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant,
devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,--an exordium which is certainly
well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to
inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in
the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and
the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly
Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove
novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but
one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey
Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having
"bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"--a resolution which
proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense
advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment
of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and
exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for
forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that
Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday
following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged
relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm,
tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and
record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high
Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling,
and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in
Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always
succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible."

The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly
have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer
the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is
the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being
agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of
the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal
Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental.
However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of
Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their
Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations."

Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and
importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident
Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so
unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7
[1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married
about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some
poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and
when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife
having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after
desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having
eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his
Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the
Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some
Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most
to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of
villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of
penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the
shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report
comprises sentences.

The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said,
of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they
were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published
works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses,
epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however,
occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from
sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by
to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have
determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for
he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American
Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the
Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at
page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is
very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better
Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The
probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to
help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in
giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for
transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the
Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following
estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the
reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the
vulgar Papists."


THE LITTLE CREED.

Little Creed can I need,
Kneel before our Lady's Knee,
  Candle light, Candle burn,
  Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son
  That we might all to Heaven come;
Little Creed, Amen!


THE WHITE PATER NOSTER.

White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother,
  What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves.
  What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys.
Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates,
  And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother:
  White Pater Noster, Amen!

We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet
succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series
of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we
commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop
Man." The following are the concluding verses:--

  "But, above all, thou grand Catholicon,
  Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd,
  Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind!
  When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd
  With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire
  Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty,
  Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy;
  To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch
  Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts."

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