FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose 'Democracy" (Dec. 1867). Galaxy. Printed copies. Box 32 Folder 26Perfect - 1666/667 DECEMBER, Vol IV. 1867 No.8 The GALAXY AN Illustrated Magazine of Entertaining Reading Published MONTHLY. New York: W.C.&F.P. Church No.39 Park-Row.ESTABLISHED 1861. THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO. HAVE JUST RECEIVED TWO FULL CARGOES OF THE FINEST NEW CROP TEAS, 22,000 Half Chests by ship Golden State. 12,000 Half Chests by ship George Shotton. In addition to these large cargoes of Black and Japan Teas, the Company are constantly receiving large invoices of the finest quality of Green Teas from the Moyune district of China, which are unrivalled for fineness and delicacy of flavor. To give our readers an idea of the profits which have been made in the Tea trade, we will start with the American houses, leaving out of the account entirely the profits of the Chinese factors. 1st. The American house in China or Japan makes large profits on their sales or shipments— and some of the richest retired merchants in the country have made their immense fortunes through their houses in China. 2d. The Banker makes large profits upon the foreign exchange used in the purchase of Teas. 3d. The Importer makes a profit of 30 to 50 per cent. in many cases. 4th. On its arrival here it is sold by the cargo, and the Purchaser sells it to the Speculator in invoices of 1,000 to 2,000 packages, at an average profit of about 10 per cent. 5th. The Speculator sells it to the Wholesale Tea Dealer in lines at a profit of 10 to 15 per cent. 6th. The Wholesale Tea Dealer sells it to the Wholesale Grocer in lots to suit his trade, at a profit of about 10 per cent. 7th. The Wholesale Grocer sells it to the Retail Dealer at a profit of 15 to 25 per cent. 8th. The Retailer sells it to the Consumer for ALL THE PROFIT HE CAN GET. When you have added to these EIGHT profits as many brokerages, cartages, storages, cooperages and waste, and add the original cost of the Tea, it will be perceived what the consumer has to pay. And now we propose to show why we can sell so very much lower than other dealers. We propose to do away with all these various profits and brokerages, cartages, storages, cooperages and waste, with the exception of a small commission paid for purchasing to our correspondents in China and Japan, one cartage, and a small profit to ourselves—which, on our large sales, will amply pay us. By our system of supplying Clubs throughout the country, consumers in all parts of the United States can receive their Teas at the same prices, with the small additional expense of transportation, as though they bought them at our warehouses in the city. Some parties inquire of us how they shall proceed to get up a Club. The answer is simply this: Let each person wishing to join in a Club say how much Tea or Coffee he wants , and select the kind and price from our Price List, as published in the paper or in our circulars. Write the names, kinds, and amounts plainly on the list as seen in the Club Order published below, and when the Club is complete send it to us by mail, and we will put each party's goods in separate packages, and mark the name upon them, with the cost, so that there need be no confusion in their distribution—each party getting exactly what he orders, and no more. The cost of transportation the members can divide equitably among themselves. Parties sending Club or other orders for less than thirty dollars had better send Post-office Drafts or money with their orders, to save the expense of collections by express; but larger orders we will forward by express, to collect on delivery. Hereafter we will send a complimentary package to the party getting up the Club. Our profits are small, but we will be as liberal as we can afford. We send no complimentary package for Club of less than $30. Parties getting their Teas of us may confidently rely upon getting them pure and fresh, as they come direct from the Custom House stores to our Warehouses. We warrant all the goods we sell to give entire satisfaction. If they are not satisfactory they can be returned at our expense within thirty days, and have the money refunded. The Company have selected the following kinds from their stock, which they recommend to meet the wants of Clubs. They are sold at cargo prices, the same as the Company sell them in New York, as the list of prices will show. PRICE LIST OF TEAS. Oolong (Black), 70c., 80c., 90c., best $1 per lb. Mixed (Green and Black), 70., 80c., 90c., best $1 per lb. English Breakfast (Black), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 20 per lb. Imperial (Green), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb. Young Hyson (Green), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb. Uncolored Japan, 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb. Gunpowder (Green), $1 25, best $1 50. Coffees Roasted and Ground Daily. GROUND COFFEE, 20c., 25c., 30c., 35c., best 40c. per pound. Hotels, Saloons, Boardinghouse keepers, and Families who use large quantities of Coffee, can economize in that article by using our FRENCH BREAKFAST and DINNER COFFEE, which we sell at the low price of 30c. per pound, and warrant to give perfect satisfaction. Consumers can save from 50c. to $1 per pound by purchasing their Teas of the GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., Nos. 31 and 33 Vesey street. Post Office Box, 5,643 New York City. CLUB ORDER. EDWARDS, ST. LAWRENCE CO., N. Y., June 3, 1867. THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA COMPANY, Nos. 31 and 33 Vesey street New York. Dear Sirs: I herewith send you another order for Tea. The last was duly received, and gives general satisfaction. As long as you send us such good Tea, you may expect a continuation of our patronage. As a further evidence that the subscribers were satisfied, you will observe that I send you the names of all those that sent before who were near out of Tea, with a large addition of new subscribers. Accept my thanks for the complimentary package. Ship this as the other, and oblige. Your ob't servant, DAVID C. McKEE 4 lbs. Japan, J. Havens at $1 25 $5 00 5 lbs Japan, J. Havens at 1 00 5 00 1 lb Gunpowder, J. Havens at 1 50 1 50 1 lb. Japan, S. Curtis at 1 25 1 25 2 lbs Young Hyson, S. Curtis at 1 00 2 00 1 lb Japan, N. Shaw at 1 00 1 00 1 lb Young Hyson, N. Shaw at 1 00 1 00 3 lbs Young Hyson, R. McCargen at 1 25 3 75 2 lbs Green, R. McCargen at 1 25 2 50 4 lbs Green, Wm. Barraford at 1 25 5 00 1 lb Gunpowder, A. H. Perkins at 1 50 1 50 ------ And ten others, making total $51 05 N. B.—All villages and towns where a large number reside, by clubbing together, can reduce the cost of their Teas and Coffees about one-third (BESIDE THE EXPRESS CHARGES) by sending directly to "The Great American Tea Company." BEWARE of all concerns that advertise themselves as branches of our Establishment, or copy our name either wholly or in part, as they are bogus or imitations We have no branches, and do not, in any case, authorize the use of our name: POST OFFICE orders and drafts make payable to the order of the Great American Tea Company. Direct letters and orders to THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., Nos. 31 and 33 Vesey st., N. Y. POST OFFICE BOX, 5,643 NEW YORK CITY. THE GALAXY. DECEMBER, 1867. CONTENTS. I.—STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. By Mrs. Edwards.... PAGE. 885 (With an Illustration by Gaston Fay.) Chapter XXVIII.—MARRIED. XXIX.—BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. XXX.—OUT OF TUNE! XXXI.—MRS. LAWRENCE AT HOME. II.—DEMOCRACY. By Walt Whitman.... 910 III.—OUR GOLDEN WEDDING. By T. W. Parsons.... 933 IV.—THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. By Olive Logan.... 934 V.—BOATING. By D. M..... 941 VI.—WORDS AND THEIR USES. By Richard Grant White.... 943 VII.—A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. By M. A. Cary.... 950 VIII.—WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. By Rebecca Harding Davis.... 957 Chapter XL.—THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DAY. XLI.—CHIVALRY'S HARVEST. XLII.—OLD WRONGS RIGHTED. XLIII.—INTO THE SILENCE. XLIV.—HOME. XLV.—JOHN BRODERIP. IX.—SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. By James O. Noyes. 989 X.—HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. By Richard Frothingham.... 994 XI.—NEBULÆ. By the Editor.... 1005 Containing: THEODORE TILTON'S POEMS PUMPKIN PIE. SHAKESPEARE, NEWTON AND GRAVITY. THE LOOKED-FOR FALL IN PRICES. The Galaxy may be obtained from any newsdealer. Subscription price $3 50 a year; invariably in advance. Two copies will be sent for $6; five copies for $14; ten for $25; twenty for $50, and one to the getter-up of the club; each additional copy $2 50. 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CHURCH, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.WAITING FOR THE VERDICT IS NOW READY IN BOOK FORM. One vol., large octavo, elegantly illustrated, bound in cloth. Price $2. Every reader of the GALAXY will desire to have this most remarkable book in a permanent form. It is worthy of being re-read by every reader of the GALAXY, and of having a prominent place in the library. IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN NOVELS. The New York Times says of it: There is little doubt that, as a book, "Waiting for the Verdict" will command much attention. It is not only the most elaborate work of its author, but it is one of the most powerful works of fiction by any American author. The Sexton's Tale and other Poems, by THEODORE TILTON, Editor of the New York Independent. Illustrated by an ornamental title page and elegant tail pieces for each Poem, printed on tinted paper, and bound with bevelled boards, and fancy cloth. 1 Vol., 16mo. Price $1 50. This is the first collect edition of Mr. Tilton's poems, many of them as sweet as anything in our language. The Life and Labors of Francis Wayland, D. D., LL.D., late President of Brown University, by his sons, HON. FRANCIS WAYLAND and REV. H. L. WAYLAND. 2 vols., 12mo. Illustrated by two steel plate likenesses of Dr. Wayland. Price $4. This will be a most interesting memoir of one of those noble specimens of a man who now and then appear and direct and give tone to the thoughts of their generation. The volumes will be enriched by Dr. Wayland's correspondence with most of the leading men of his day. A new Enlarged Edition of Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book, AND YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER'S ASSISTANT. A chapter on Carving has been added, and a very large number of new recepts, with special reference to economy in cooking. I vol., 12mo. Price about $1 50. Any of the above sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. SHELDON & CO., PUBLISHERS., 498 and 500 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. DEMOCRACY. AFTER the rest is said—after many time-honored and really true things for subordination, experience, rights of property, etc., have been listened to, and acquiesced in—after the valuable and well-settled statement of our duties and relations in society is thoroughly conned over and exhausted—it remains to bring forward and modify everything else with the idea of that Something a man is, standing apart from all else, divine in his own right, and a woman in hers, sole and untouchable by any canons of religion, politics, or what is called modesty or art. The radiation of this truth, practically a modern one, is the history and key of the most significant doings of our immediately preceding three centuries, and has been the political genesis and life of America. Advancing visibly, it still more advances invisibly. Underneath the fluctuations of the expressions of society, as well as the movements of the politics of the leading nations, we see steadily pressing ahead, and strengthening itself, even in the midst of immense tendencies toward aggregation, this image of completeness in separatism, of individual personal dignity, of a single person, either male or female, characterized in the main, not from extrinsic acquirements or position, but in the pride of himself or herself alone; and, as an eventual conclusion and summing-up, the simple, but tremendous and revolutionary, idea that the last, best dependence is to be upon Humanity itself, and its own inherent, normal, full-grown qualities, without any superstitious support whatever. The purpose of Democracy—supplanting old belief in the necessary absoluteness of established dynastic rulership, temporal, ecclesiastical, and scholastic, as furnishing the only security against chaos, crime, and ignorance—is, through many transmigrations, and amid endless ridicules, arguments, and ostensible failures, to illustrate, at all hazards, this doctrine of the sovereignty and sacredness of the individual, coëqual with the balance-doctrine that man, properly trained, may and must become a law, and series of laws, unto himself, surrounding and providing for, not only his own personal control, but all his relations to other individuals, and to the State; and that, while other theories, as in the past histories of nations, have proved wise enough, and indispensable perhaps for their conditions, this, as matters now stand in our civilized world, is the only Scheme worth working from, as warranting results like those of Nature's laws, reliable, when once established, to carry on themselves.920 DEMOCRACY. With such for outset, and a silent, momentary prayer that we may be enabled to tell what is worthy the faith within us, we follow on. Leaving unsaid much that should properly prepare the way for the treatment of this many-sided matter of Democracy—leaving the whole history and consideration of the Feudal Plan and its products, embodying Humanity, its politics and civilization, through the retrospect of past time (which Plan and products, indeed, make up all of the past, and a major part of the present)—leaving unanswered, at least by any specific and local answer, many a well-wrought argument and instance, and many a conscientious declamatory cry and warning—as, very lately, from an eminent and venerable person abroad—things, problems, full of doubt, dread, suspense, (not new to me, but old occupiers of many an anxious hour in city's din, or night's silence), we still may give a paragraph or so, whose drift is opportune. Time alone can finally answer these things. But as a substitute in passing let us, even if fragmentarily, throw forth a thought or two—a short direct or indirect suggestion of the premises of the theory, that other Plan, in the new spirit, under the new forms, started here in our America. As to the political section of Democracy, which introduces and breaks ground for further and vaster sections, few probably are the minds, even in these republican States, that fully comprehend the aptness of that phrase, "THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE," which we inherit from the lips of Abraham Lincoln; a formula whose verbal shape is homely wit, but whose scope includes both the totality and all minutiæ of the lesson. The People! Like our huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradictions and offence, Man, viewed in the lump, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely educated classes. The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and oceanic qualities; but taste, intelligence and culture (so-called), have been against the masses, and remain so. There is plenty of glamour about the most damnable crimes and hoggish meannesses, special and general, of the Feudal and dynastic world, with its personnel of lords and queens and courts, so well-dressed and so handsome. But the People are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins are gaunt and ill-bred. Literature has never recognized the People, and, whatever may be said, does not to-day. Speaking generally, the tendencies of literature, as pursued, are to make mostly critical and querulous men. It seems as if, so far, there were some natural repugnance between a literary and professional life, and the rude spirit of the Democracies. There is, in later literature, a treatment of benevolence, DEMOCRACY. 921 a charity business, rife enough; but I know nothing more rare, even in this country, than a fit scientific estimate and reverent appreciation of the People—of their measureless wealth of latent power and capacity, their vast, artistic contrasts of lights and shades—and in America, their entire reliability in emergencies, and a certain breadth of historic grandeur, of peace or war, surpassing all the vaunted samples of the personality of book-heroes, in all the records of the world. The movements of the late war, and their results, to any sense that studies well and comprehends them, show that Popular Democracy practically justifies itself beyond the proudest claims and wildest hopes of its enthusiasts. Probably no future age can know, as we well know, how the gist of this fiercest and most resolute of the world's warlike contentions resided exclusively in the unnamed, unknown rank and file; and how the brunt of its labor of death was, to all essential purposes, Volunteered. The People, of their own choice, fighting, dying for their own idea, insolently attacked by the Secession-Slave-Power, and its very existence imperilled. Descending to detail, entering any of the armies, and mixing with the private soldiers, we see and have seen august spectacles. We have seen the alacrity with which the American-born populace, the peaceablest and most good-natured race in the world, and the most personally independent and intelligent, and the least fitted to submit to the irksomeness and exasperation of regimental discipline, sprang, at the first tap of the drum, to arms—not for gain, nor even glory, nor to repel invasion—but for an emblem, a mere abstraction— for the life, the safety of the Flag. We have seen the unequalled docility and obedience of these soldiers. We have seen them tried long and long by hopelessness, mismanagement, and by defeat; have seen the incredible slaughter toward or through which the armies (as at first Fredericksburg, and afterward at the Wilderness), still unhesitatingly obeyed orders to advance. We have seen them in trench, or crouching behind breastwork, or tramping in deep mud, or amid pouring rain or snow, or under forced marches in hottest Summer (as on the road to get to Gettysburg), vast suffocating swarms, divisions, corps, with every single man so grimed and black with sweat and dust, his own mother would not have known him; his clothes all dirty, stained and torn, with sour, accumulated sweat for perfume, many a comrade, perhaps a brother, sun-struck, staggering out, dying, by the roadside, of exhaustion— yet the great bulk bearing steadily on, cheery enough, hollow-bellied from hunger, but sinewy with unconquerable resolution. We have seen this race proved by wholesale by drearier, yet more fearful tests—the wound, the amputation, the shattered face or limb, the slow, hot fever, long, impatient anchorage in bed, and all the forms of maiming, operation and disease. Alas! America have922 DEMOCRACY. we seen, though only in her early youth, already to hospital brought. There have we watched these soldiers, many of them only boys in years—marked their decorum, their religious nature and fortitude, and their sweet affection. Wholesale, truly! For at the front, and through the camps, in countless tents, stood the regimental, brigade and division hospitals; while everywhere amid the land, in or near cities, rose clusters of huge, whitewashed, crowded, wooden barracks, (Washington City alone, at one period, containing in her Army hospitals of this kind, 50,000 wounded and sick men)—and there ruled Agony with bitter scourge, yet seldom brought a cry; and there stalked Death by day and night along the narrow aisles between the rows of cots, or by the blankets on the ground, and touched lightly many a poor sufferer, often with blessed, welcome touch. I know not whether I shall be understood, but I realize that it is finally from what I learned in such scenes that I am now penning this article. One night in the gloomiest period of the war, in the Patent Office Hospital, as I stood by the bedside of a Pennsylvania soldier, who lay, conscious of quick approaching death, yet perfectly calm, and with noble, spiritual manner, the veteran surgeon, Dr. Stone (Horatio Stone, the sculptor), turning aside, said to me that though he had witnessed many, many deaths of soldiers, and had been a worker at Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, etc., he had not seen yet the first case of man or boy that met the approach of dissolution with cowardly qualms or terror. My own observation fully bears out the remark. What have we here, if not, towering above all talk and argument, the plentifully-supplied, last-needed proof of Democracy, in its personalities? Grand, common stock! to me the accomplished and convincing growth, prophetic of the future, proof undeniable to sharpest sense, of perfect beauty, tenderness and pluck, that never Feudal lord, nor Greek nor Roman breed, yet rivalled. Let no tongue ever speak in disparagement of the American races, North or South, to one who has been through the war in the great Army hospitals. —Meantime, Humanity (for we will not shirk anything) has always, in every department, been full of perverse maleficence, and is so yet. In downcast hours the Soul thinks it always will be—but soon recovers from such sickly moods. I, as Democrat, see clearly enough (none more clearly), the crude, defective streaks in all the strata of the common people; the specimens and vast collections of the ignorant, the credulous, the unfit and uncouth, the incapable and the very low and poor. The eminent person, in his conscientious cry just mentioned, sneeringly asks whether we expect to elevate and improve politics by absorbing such morbid collections and qualities therein. The point is a formidable one, and there will DEMOCRACY. 923 doubtless always be numbers of solid citizens who will never get over it. Our answer is general, and is involved in the scope and letter of this article. We believe the object of political and all other government (having, of course, provided for the police, the safety of life, property, and the basic common and civil law, always first in order) to be, among the rest, not merely to rule, to repress disorder, etc., but to develop, to open up to cultivation, to encourage the possibilities of all beneficent and manly outcroppage, and of that aspiration for independence, and the pride and self-respect latent in all characters. (Or, if there be exceptions, we cannot, fixing our eyes on them alone, make theirs the rule for all.) The mission of government, henceforth, in civilized lands, is not authority alone, not even of law, nor by that favorite standard of the eminent writer, the rule of the best men, the born heroes and captains of the race (as if such ever, or one time out of a hundred, got into the big places, elective or dynastic!)—but, higher than the highest arbitrary rule, to train communities through all their grades, beginning with individuals and ending there again, to rule themselves. What Christ appeared for in the moral-spiritual field for Humankind, namely, that in respect to the absolute Soul, there is in the possession of such by each single individual, something so transcendent, so incapable of gradations (like life), that, to that extent, it places all beings on a common level, utterly regardless of the distinctions of intellect, station, or any height or lowliness whatever— is tallied in like manner, in this other field, by Democracy's rule that men, the Nation, as a common aggregate of living identities, affording in each a separate and complete subject for freedom, worldly thrift and happiness, and for a fair change for growth, and for protection, in citizenship, etc., must, to the political extent of the suffrage or vote, if no further, be placed, in each and in the whole, on one broad, primary, universal, common platform. The purpose is not altogether direct; perhaps it is more indirect. To be a voter with the rest is not so much; and this, like every institute, will have its imperfections. But to become an enfranchised man, and now to stand and start without humiliation, and equal with the rest; to commence, or have the road cleared to commence, the grand experiment of development, whose end, perhaps requiring several generations, may be the forming of a full-grown manly or womanly Personality—that is something. To ballast the state is also secured, and in our times is to be secured, in no other way. We do not (at any rate I do not) put it either so much on the ground that the People, the masses, even the best of them are, in their latent or exhibited qualities, essentially sensible and good— nor on the ground of their rights; but that, good or bad, rights or no rights, the Democratic formula is the only safe and preservative924 DEMOCRACY. one for coming times. We endow the masses with the suffrage for their own sake, no doubt; then, still more, from another point of view, for community's sake. Leaving the rest to the sentimentalists, we present Freedom as sufficient in its scientific aspects, cold as ice, reasoning, clear and passionless as crystal. Democracy too is law, and of the strictest, amplest kind. Many suppose (and often in its own ranks the error) that it means a throwing aside of law, and running riot. But, briefly, it is the superior law, not alone that of physical force, the body, which, adding to, it supersedes with that of the spirit. Law is the unshakeable order of the universe forever; and the law over all, and law of laws, is the law of succession; that of the superior law, in time, gradually supplanting and overwhelming the inferior one. (While, for myself, I would cheerfully agree—first covenanting that the formative tendencies shall be administered in favor, or, at least not against it, and that this reservation to be closely construed—that until the individual or community show due signs, or be so minor and fractional as not to endanger the State, the condition of tutelage may continue, and self-government must abide its time.) —Nor is the esthetic point, always an important one, without fascination for highest aiming souls. The common ambition strains for common elevations, to become some privileged exclusive. The master sees greatness and health in being part of the mass. Nothing will do as well as common ground. Would you have in yourself the divine, vast, general law? Then merge yourself in it. And, topping Democracy, this most alluring record, that it alone can bind, and ever seeks to bind, all nations, all men, of however various and distant lands, into a brotherhood, a family. It is the old, yet ever-modern dream of Earth, out of her eldest and her youngest, her fond philosophers and poets. Not this half only, this Individualism, which isolates. There is another half, which is Adhesiveness or Love, that fuses, ties and aggregates, making the races comrades, and fraternizing all. Both are to be vitalized by Religion (sole worthiest elevator of man or State) breathing into the proud, material tissues, the breath of life. For at the core of Democracy, finally, is the Religious element. All the Religions, old and new, are there. Nor may the Scheme step forth, clothed in resplendent beauty and command, till these, bearing the best, the latest fruit, the Spiritual, the aspirational, shall fully appear. —Portions of our pages we feel to indite with reference toward Europe more than our own land, and thus, perhaps not absolutely needed for the home reader. But the whole question hangs together, and fastens and links all peoples. The Liberalist of to-day has this advantage over antique or medieval times, that his doctrine seeks both to universalize as well as individualize. The great word Solidarity has arisen. DEMOCRACY. 925 How, then (for in that shape forebodes the current deluge)—how shall we, good-class folk, meet the rolling, mountainous surges of "swarmery" that already beat upon and threaten to overwhelm us? What disposal, short of wholesale throat-cutting and extermination (which seems not without its advantages), offers, for the countless herds of "hoofs and hobnails," that will somehow, and so perversely get themselves born, and grow up to annoy and vex us? What under heaven is to become of "nigger Cushee," that imbruted and lazy being—now, worst of all, preposterously free? etc. Never before such a yawning gulf; never such danger as now from incarnated Democracy advancing, with the laboring classes at its back. Woe the day; woe the doings, the prospects thereof! England, or any respectable land, giving the least audience to these "servants of the mud gods," or, utterly infatuate, extending to them the suffrage, takes swift passage therewith, bound for the infernal pit. Ring the alarum bell! Put the flags at half mast! Or, rather, let each man spring for the nearest loose spar or plank. The ship is going down! Be not so moved, not to say distraught, my venerable friend. Spare those spasms of dread and disgust. England, after her much-widened suffrage, as she did before, will still undergo troubles and tribulations, without doubt; but they will be as nothing to what (in the judgment of all heads not quite careened and addled), would certainly follow the spirit, carried out in any modern nation, these days, of your appeal or diatribe. Neither by berating them, nor twitting them with their low condition of ignorance and misery, nor by leaving them as they are, nor by turning the screws still tighter, nor by taking even the most favorable chances for "the noble Few" to come round with relief, will the demon of that "unanimous vulgar" (paying very heavy taxes) be pacified and made harmless any more. Strangely enough, about the only way to really lay the fiend appears to be this very way—the theme of these your ravings. A sort of fate and antique Nemesis, of the highest old Greek tragedy sort, is in it (as in our own Play, or affair, rapidly played of late here in the South, through all the acts—indeed a regular, very wondrous Eschuylean piece—to that old part First, that bound and chained unkillable Prometheus, now, after twenty-three hundred years, very grandly and epico-dramatically supplanting and fully supplying the lost, or never before composed, Second and Third parts). Your noble, hereditary, Anglo-Saxon-Norman institutions (still here so loudly championed and battled for in your argument) having been, through some seven or eight centuries, thriftily engaged in cooking up this mess, have now got to eat it. The only course eligible, it is plain, is to plumply confront, embrace, absorb, swallow (O, big and bitter pill!) the entire British "swarmery," demon, "loud roughs" and all. These926 DEMOCRACY. ungrateful men, not satisfied with the poor-house for their old age, and the charity-school for their infants, evidently mean business— may-be of bloody kind. By all odds, my friend, the thing to do is to make a flank movement, surround them, disarm them, give them their first degree, incorporate them in the State as voters, and then—wait for the next emergency. Nor may I permit myself to dismiss this utterance of the eminent person without pronouncing its laboriously-earned and fully-deserved credit for about the highest eminence attained yet, in a certain direction, of any linguistic product, written or spoken, to me known. I have had occasion in my past life (being born, as it were, with propensities, from my earliest years, to attend popular American speech-gatherings, conventions, nominations, camp-meetings, and the like, and also as a reader of newspapers, foreign and domestic)— I therefore know that trial to one's ears and brains from divers creatures, alluded to by sample, and well-hetchelled in this diatribe, crow-cawing the words Liberty, loyalty, human rights, constitutions, etc. I, too, have heard the ceaseless braying, screaming blatancy (on behalf of my own side), making noisiest threats and clatter stand for sense. But I must now affirm that such a comic-painful hullabaloo and vituperative cat-squalling as this about "the Niagara leap," "swarmery," "Orsonism," etc. (meaning, in point, as I make out, simply extending to full-grown British working-folk, farmers, mechanics, clerks, and so on—the "industrial aristocracy," indeed, there named—the privilege of the ballot, or vote, deciding, by popular majorities, who shall be designated to sit in one of the two Houses of Parliament, if it mean anything), I never yet encountered; no, not even in extremest hour of midnight, in whooping Tennessee revival, or Bedlam let loose in crowded, colored Carolina bush-meeting. But to proceed, and closer to our text. The curse and canker of Nations politically has been—or, at any rate, will be, as things have come to exist in our day—the having of certain portions of the people set off from the rest by a line drawn—they not privileged as others, but degraded, humiliated, made of no account. We repeat it, the question is, finally, one of Science—the science of the present and the future. Much quackery teems, of course, yet does not really affect the orbic quality of the matter. To work in, if we may so term it, and justify God, his divine aggregate, the People (or, the veritable horned and fluke- tailed Devil, his aggregate, then, since you so convulsively insist upon it, O, eminence!)—this, without doubt, is what Democracy is for; and this is what our America means, and is doing—may I not say, has done? If not, she means nothing more, and does nothing more than any other land. And as, by virtue of its cosmical, antiseptic power, Nature's stomach is fully strong enough not only to DEMOCRACY. 927 digest the morbific matter always presented, not to be turned aside, and perhaps, indeed, intuitively gravitating thither—but even to change such contributions into nutriment for highest use and life— so American Democracy's. That is the lesson we, these days, send over to European lands by every western breeze. And, truly, whatever may be said in the way of abstract argument, for or against the theory of a wider democratizing of institutions in any civilized country, much trouble might well be saved to those European lands by recognizing this palpable fact (for a palpable fact it is), that some form of such democratizing is about the only resource now left. That, or chronic dissatisfaction continued, mutterings which grow annually louder and louder, till, in due course, and pretty swiftly in most cases, the inevitable crisis, crash, dynastic ruin. Anything worthy to be called statesmanship in the Old World, I should say, among the advanced students, adepts, or men of any brains, does not debate to-day whether to hold on, attempting to lean back and monarchize, or to look forward and democratize—but how, and in what degree and part, most prudently to democratize. The difficulties of the transfer may be fearful; perhaps none here in our America can truly know them. I, for one, fully acknowledge them, and sympathize deeply. But there is Time, and must be Faith; and Opportunities, though gradual and slow, will everywhere be born. And beaming like a star, to any and to all, whatever else may for a while be quenched, shines not the eternal signal in the West? —There is (turning home again) a thought, or fact, I must not forget—subtle and vast, dear to America, twin-sister of its Democracy— so ligatured indeed to it, that either's death, if not the other's also, would make that other live out life, dragging a corpse, a loathsome, horrid tag and burden forever at its feet. What the idea of Messiah was to the ancient race of Israel, through storm and calm, through public glory and their name's humiliation, tenacious, refusing to be argued with, shedding all shafts of ridicule and disbelief, undestroyed by captivities, battles, deaths—for neither the scalding blood of war, nor the rotted ichor of peace could ever wash it out, nor has yet—a great Idea, bedded in Judah's heart— source of the loftiest Poetry the world yet knows—continuing on the same, though all else varies—the spinal thread of the incredible romance of that people's career along five thousand years—so runs this thought, this fact, amid our own land's race and history. It is the thought of Oneness, averaging, including all; of Identity—the indissoluble Union of These States. —The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertness and fossilism making so large a part of human institutions. The latter will always take care of themselves. The former is to be treated928 DEMOCRACY. with indulgence, and even respect. As circulation to air, so is agitation and a plentiful degree of speculative license to political and moral sanity. Indirectly, but surely, goodness, virtue, law (of the very best) follow Freedom. These, to Democracy, are what the keel is to the ship, or saltness to the ocean. The gravitation-hold of Liberalism will be a more universal ownership of property, general homesteads, general comfort—a vast, intertwining reticulation of wealth. No community furnished throughout with homes, and substantial, however moderate, incomes, commits suicide, or "shoots Niagara." As the human frame, or indeed, any object in this manifold Universe, is best kept together by the simple miracle of its own cohesion, and the necessity and profit thereof, so a great and varied Nationality, occupying millions of square miles, were firmest held and knit by the principle of the safety and endurance of the aggregate of its middling property owners. So that, from another point of view, ungracious as it may sound, and a paradox after what we have been saying, Democracy looks with suspicious, ill-satisfied eye upon the very poor, and on the ignorant. She asks for men and women well-off, owners of houses and acres, and with cash in the bank—and with some cravings for literature, too; and must have them, and hastens to make them. Luckily, the seed is already well-sown, and has taken ineradicable root. —Huge and mighty are our Days, our republican lands—and most in their rapid shiftings, their changes, all in the interest of the Cause. As I write, the din of disputation rages around me. Acrid the temper of the parties, vital the pending questions. Congress convenes; the President sends his Message; Reconstruction is still in abeyance; the nominations and the contest for the twenty-first Presidentiad draw close, with loudest threat and bustle. Of these, and all the like of these, the eventuations I know not; but well I know that behind them, and whatever their eventuations, the really vital things remain safe and certain, and all the needed work goes on. Time, with soon or later superciliousness, disposes of Presidents, Congressmen, party platforms, and such. Anon, it clears the stage of each and any mortal shred that thinks itself so potent to its day; and at and after which (with precious, golden exceptions once or twice in a century), all that relates to sir potency is flung to moulder in a burial-vault, and no one bothers himself the least bit about it afterward. But the People ever remains, tendencies continue, and all the idiocratic transfers in unbroken chain go on. In a few years the dominion-heart of America will be far inland, toward the West. Our future National Capitol will not be where the present one is. I should say that certainly, in less than fifty years, it will migrate a thousand or two miles, will be re-founded, and every thing belonging DEMOCRACY. 929 to it made on a different plan, original, far more superb. The main social, political spine-character of The States will probably run along the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and west and north of them, including Canada. Those regions, with the group of powerful brothers toward the Pacific (destined to the mastership of that sea and its countless Paradises of islands), will compact and settle the traits of America, with all the old retained, but more expanded, grafted on newer, hardier, purely native stock. A giant growth, composite from the rest, getting their contribution, absorbing it to make it more illustrious. From the North, Intellect, the sun of things—also the idea of unswayable Justice, anchor amid the last, the wildest tempests. From the South, the living Soul, the animus of good and bad, haughtily admitting no demonstration but its own. While from the West itself comes solid Personality, with blood and brawn, and the deep quality of all-accepting fusion. Political Democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, supplies a training-school for making grand young men. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all. We try often, though we fall back often. A brave delight, fit for freedom's athletes, fills these arenas, and fully satisfies, out of the action in them, irrespective of success. Whatever we do not attain, we at any rate attain the experiences of the fight, the hardening of the strong campaign, and throb with currents of attempt at least. Time is ample. Let the victors come after us. Not for nothing does evil play its part among men. Vive, the attack—the perennial assault! Vive, the unpopular cause—the spirit that audaciously aims—the courage that dies not—the never-abandoned efforts, pursued the same amid opposing proofs and precedents. —Once, before the war, I, too, was filled with doubt and gloom. A traveller, an acute and good man, had impressively said to me, that day—putting in form, indeed, my own observations: I have traveled much in the United States, and watched their politicians, and listened to the speeches of the candidates, and read the journals, and gone into the public houses, and heard the unguarded talk of men. And I have found your vaunted America honey-combed from top to toe with infidelism, even to itself and its own programme. I have marked the brazen hell-faces of secession and slavery gazing defiantly from all the windows and doorways. I have everywhere found, primarily, thieves and scalliwags arranging the nominations to offices, and sometimes filling the offices themselves. I have found the North just as full of bad stuff as the South. Of the holders of public office in the Nation, or in the States, or their municipalities, I have found that not one in a hundred has been chosen by any spontaneous selection of the outsiders, the people, but all have been nominated and put through by little or large930 DEMOCRACY. caucuses of the politicians, and have got in by electioneering, not desert. I have noticed how the millions of sturdy farmers and mechanics are thus the helpless supple-jacks of comparatively few politicians. And I have noticed more and more, the alarming spectacle of parties usurping the Government, and openly and shamelessly wielding it for party purposes. Sad, serious, deep truths. Yet are there other, still deeper, amply confronting, dominating truths. Over those politicians, and over all their insolence and wiles, and over the powerfulest parties, looms a Power, too sluggish may-be, but ever holding decisions and decrees in hand, ready, with stern process to execute them as soon as plainly needed, and at times, indeed, summarily crushing to atoms the mightiest parties, even in the hour of their pride. Far different are the amounts of these things from what, at first sight, they appear. Though it is no doubt important who is elected President or Governor, Mayor or Legislator, there are other, quieter contingencies, infinitely more important. Shams, etc., will always be the show, like ocean's scum; enough if waters deep and clear make up the rest. Enough, that while the piled embroidered shoddy gaud and fraud spreads to the superficial eye, the hidden warp and weft are genuine, and will wear forever. Enough, in short, that the race, the land which could raise such as the late rebellion, could also put it down. The average man of a land at last only is important. He, in These States, remains immortal owner and boss, deriving good uses, somehow, out of any sort of servant in office, even the basest; because (certain universal requisites, and their settled regularity and protection, being first secured), a Nation like ours, in the formation state, trying continually new experiments, choosing new delegations, is not served by the best men only, but sometimes more by those that provoke it—by the combats they arouse. Thus national rage, fury, discussion, etc., sublimer than content. Thus, also, the warning signals, invaluable for after times. What is more dramatic than the spectacle we have seen repeated, and doubtless long shall see—the popular judgment taking the successful candidates on trial in the offices—standing off, as it were, and observing them and their doings for a while, and always giving, finally, the fit, exactly due reward. —When I pass to and fro, different latitudes, different seasons, beholding the crowds of great cities, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans, Baltimore—when I mix with these interminable swarms of alert, turbulent, good-natured, independent citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons—at the idea of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a singular awe falls upon me. I feel, with dejection and amazement, that among our geniuses and talented DEMOCRACY. 931 writers or speakers, few or none have yet really spoken to this people, or absorbed the central spirit and the idiosyncrasies which are theirs, and which, thus, in highest ranges, so far remain entirely uncelebrated, unexpressed. Dominion strong is the body's; dominion stronger is the mind's. What has filled, and fills to-day our intellect, our fancy, furnishing the standards therein, is yet foreign. The great poems, Shakespeare included, are poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood of Democracy. The models of our literature, as we get it from other lands, ultramarine, have had their birth originally in courts, and basked and grown in castle sunshine; all smells of princes' favors. For esthetic Europe is yet exclusively feudal. The literature of These States, a new projection, when it comes, must be the born outcrop, through all rich and luxuriant forms, but stern and exclusive, of the sole Idea of The States, belonging here alone. Of course, of workers of a certain sort, we have already plenty, contributing after their kind; many elegant, many learned, all complacent. But, touched by the National test, they wither to ashes. I say I have not seen one single writer, artist, lecturer, or what not, that has confronted the voiceless but ever erect and active, pervading, underlying will and typic Aspiration of the land, in a spirit kindred to itself. Do you call those genteel little creatures American poets? Do you term that perpetual, pistareen, pasteboard work, American art, American opera, drama, taste, verse? I think I hear, echoed as from some mountain-top afar in the West, the scornful laugh of the Genius of These States. —Democracy, in silence, biding its time, ponders its own ideals, not of men only, but of women. The idea of the women of America (extricated from this daze, this fossil and unhealthy air which hangs about the word, Lady), developed, raised to become the robust equals, workers, and even practical and political deciders with the men—greater than man, we may admit, through their divine maternity, always their towering, emblematical attribute— but great, at any rate, as man, in all departments, or, rather, capable of being so, soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do, amid real, independent, stormy life. —Then, as toward finale (and, in that, overarching the true scholar's lesson), we have to say there can be no complete or epical presentation of Democracy, or any thing like it, at this day, because its doctrines will only be effectually incarnated in any one branch, when, in all, their spirit is at the root and centre. How much is still to be disentangled, freed! How long it takes to make this world see that it is, in itself, the final authority and reliance! Did you, too, suppose Democracy was only for elections, for932 DEMOCRACY. politics, and for a party name? I say Democracy is only use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs—Democracy in all public and private life, and in the Army and Navy. I have intimated that, as a paramount scheme, it has yet few or no full realizers and believers. I do not see, either, that it owes any serious thanks to noted propagandists or champions, or has been essentially helped, though often harmed, by them. It has been and is carried on by all the moral forces, and by trade, finance, machinery, intercommunications, etc., and can no more be stopped than the tides, or the earth in its orbit. Doubtless, also, it resides, crude and latent, well down in the hearts of the fair average of the American-born people, mainly in the agricultural regions. But it is not yet, there or anywhere, the fully-received, the fervid, the absolute faith. I submit, therefore, that the fruition of Democracy, on aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in the future. As, under any profound and comprehensive view of the gorgeous-composite Feudal world, we see in it, through the long ages and cycles of ages, the results of a deep, integral, human and divine principle, or fountain, from which issued laws, ecclesia, manners, institutes, costumes, personalities, poems (hitherto unequalled), faithfully partaking of their source, and indeed only arising either to betoken it, or to furnish parts of that varied-flowing display, whose centre was one and absolute— so, long ages hence, shall the due historian or critic make at least an equal retrospect, an equal History for the Democratic principle. It, too, must be adorned, credited with its results; then, when it, with imperial power, through amplest time, has dominated mankind —has been the source and test of all the moral, esthetic, social, political, and religious expressions and institutes of the civilized world—has begotten them in spirit and in form, and carried them to its own unprecedented heights—has had monastics and ascetics, more numerous, more devout than the monks and priests of all previous creeds—has swayed the ages with a breadth and rectitude tallying Nature's own—has fashioned, systemized, and triumphantly finished and carried out, in its own interest, and with unparalleled success, a New Earth and a New Man. —Thus we presume to write, as it were, upon things that exist not, and travel by maps yet unmade, and a blank. But the throes of birth are upon us; and we have something of this advantage in seasons of strong formations, doubts, suspense—for then the afflatus of such themes haply may fall upon us, more or less; and then, hot from surrounding revolution, our speech, though without polished coherence, and a failure by the standard called criticism, comes forth, real at least, as the lightnings. And may-be we, these days, have, too, our own reward (for there OUR GOLDEN WEDDING. 933 are yet some, in all lands, worthy to be so encouraged.) Though not for us the joy of entering at the last the conquered city —nor ours the chance ever to see with our own eyes the peerless power and splendid eclat of the Democratic principle, arrived at meridian, filling the world with effulgence and majesty far beyond those of past history's kings, or all dynastic sway; there is yet, to whoever is eligible among us, the prophetic vision, the joy of being tossed in the brave turmoil of these times—the promulgation and the path, obedient, lowly reverent to the voice, the gesture of the god, or holy ghost, which others see not, hear not— with the proud consciousness that amid whatever clouds, seductions, or heart-wearying postponements, we have never deserted, never despaired, never abandoned the Faith. WALT WHITMAN. OUR GOLDEN WEDDING ON THE ISLAND. A LOVE-TALE happened long ago, But not much, more than fifty years, Like all such stories, high or low, Mingled of hopes and joys and tears. Those hopes Heaven sweetly did fulfil— Look round on our ancestral isle, Behold the blossoms of our hill And let the children's children smile ! The joys have been—and joy should be, And thanks in every heart to-night ! You generations—one, two, three, Call you not this a gladsome sight ? And other tears may be to come, When He who gave shall take away ; But rather let our song be dumb Than dwell upon the distant day. The present is the hour for us— Love long be with you, blessed pair ! Rise, David Heard! victorious, Once more thy BETSEY wed and wear ! T. W. PARSONS. 59THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. THE drunken drama has two branches. One branch is illustrated by the actor who represents drunkenness on the stage, as he might represent thievery, murder, or any other wickedness. The other branch is illustrated by the actor who gets drunk. Not infrequently the two are combines, and Toodles on the stage is also Toodles in private. He may move us to laughter in the theatre, but we may be assured there will be others whom he will move to tears out of it. It was formerly more common than it is now, to endeavor to make the drama subservient to the cause of temperance: such plays as The Drunkard and Ten Nights in a Bar-Room were used as a means of warning to young men. Now, the serious drunkard has gone out of fashion, and his place in the drama is occupied by such amusing sots as Toodles and Eccles. We seldom now see the moral phase of the drunken drama on the stage of any of our first-class theatres. When the play of The Drunkard was first produced, it created a marked sensation. Its chief impersonator, a delicate young man of twenty-five, named Goodall, died of excessive drinking, and the piece expired with its great representative. Goodall was an extraordinary example of the preacher who fails to practice his own precepts. There may have been those who profited by his "fearful example," as nightly rendered to crowded houses—I have heard some very impressive stories to that effect, but never gave them much credit—but the actor himself was not warned. The personation was no mere mimicry with Goodall. He himself had felt the anguish he so powerfully portrayed. But the bitterest comment on the influence of such representations remains in the fact that although this unhappy young man reformed on the stage every night during a period of three years, he never extended his reformation into private life. They call this sort of play "the moral drama." The term is a ridiculous one, and one born of cant. Aside from its absurdity, it is an insult to every class of dramatic production, and I can only wonder that any self-respecting manager should ever have adopted it. It implies that the drama proper is immoral. That position is one which should be left for the enemies of the theatre to assume. I have a sincere respect for genuine convictions, and a sincere contempt for narrow prejudice. It is to this prejudice that the original inventor of the "moral dram" pandered—and by doing to, tacitly admitted that such prejudices were well founded. COLGATE & COMPANY'S TOILET SOAPS. The excellence of COLGATE & CO'S Toilet Soap has led to their adoption by the public as the BEST in use, and consequently to their UNIVERSAL SALE by dealers in CHOICE GOODS. The merit of these Soaps consists in a nice adaptation of materials in such proportion as to produce the most BENEFICIAL EFFECTS, and prevent the unpleasant consequences resulting from the use of soaps containing EXCESS of alkali or other ingredients injurious to the skin—this being considered of the first importance. These soaps are adapted to all toilet uses, are agreeable in PERFUME, and of excellent washing properties, and are confidently recommended as the most desirable for general consumption to be found in the market. COLGATE & COMPANY, Nos. 53 and 55 John Street[*389 x 24/2*] STEINWAY & SONS' Grand, Square and Upright Piano-Fortes, Have taken Thirty-five First Premiums, at the Principal Fairs held in this country within the last ten years, and also were awarded a First Prize Medal at the Grand International Exhibition in London, 1862, in competition with 269 Pianos from all parts of the World. That the great superiority of these instruments is now universally conceded is proven by the FACT that Messrs. Steinways' "scales, improvements, and peculiarities of construction" have been copied by the great majority of the manufacturers of both hemispheres (as closely as could be done without infringement of patent rights), and that their instruments are used by the most eminent pianists of Europe and America, who prefer them for their own public and private use whenever accessible. Every Piano is constructed with their "Patent Agraffe Arrangement" applied directly to the full Iron Frame. STEINWAY & SONS direct special attention to their newly-invented "UPRIGHT" Pianos, with their "PATENT RESONATOR" and DOUBLE Iron Frame, patented June 5, 1866. This invention consists in providing the instrument (in addition to the iron frame in front of the soundboard) with an iron brace frame in the rear of it, both frames being cast in one piece, thereby imparting a solidity of construction and capacity of standing in tune never before attained in that class of instrument. The soundboard is supported between the two frames by an apparatus regulating its tension, so that the greatest possible degree of sound-producing capacity is obtained and regulated to the nicest desirable point. The great volume and exquisite quality of tone, as well as elasticity and promptness of action, of these new Upright Pianos have elicited the unqualified admiration of the musical profession and all who have heard them. STEINWAY & SONS confidently offer these beautiful instruments to the public and invite every lover of music to call and examine them. Letter from WILLIE PAPE, Court Pianist to the Royal Family of England LONDON, ENGLAND, Feb. 4, 1866. Messrs. Steinway & Sons—I am much pleased to see the rapid advances you are making, and the numerous certificates you have so deservedly obtained. Should my humble opinion be of any weight, you may add that I give my four hundredth Piano- forte recital, at Cheltenham, on the 10th of this month, since my arrival here; that during my four annual visits to Paris, I have used the Grand Pianos of all the first European manufacturers, but have found NO INSTRUMENT EQUAL TO THE ONE I PURCHASED OF YOU. In fact, I consider one of your finest Square Pianos equal to any one of the Grand Pianos manufactured here. Truly Yours, WILLIE B. PAPE, Pianist to H. R. H. the Princess of Wales. STEINWAY & SONS' PIANOS are the only American instruments exported to Europe in large numbers and actually used by the great pianists in European Concert Rooms. WAREROOMS: FIRST FLOOR OF STEINWAY HALL, 71 and 73 East 14th Street, Between Fourth Avenue and Irving Place, NEW YORK[*Whitman*] DECEMBER 1867 Vol IV. No.8. The GALAXY AN Illustrated Magazine OF ENTERTAINING READING PUBLISHED FORTNIGHTLY. New York: W.C.& F.P. Church No.39 PARK-ROW.ESTABLISHED 1861. THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO. HAVE JUST RECEIVED TWO FULL CARGOES OF THE FINEST NEW CROP TEAS, 22,000 Half Chests by ship Golden State. 12,000 Half Chests by ship George Shotton. In addition to these large cargoes of Black and Japan Teas, the Company are constantly receiving large invoices of the finest quality of Green Teas from the Moyune district of China, which are unrivalled for fineness and delicacy of flavor. To give our readers an idea of the profits which have been made in the Tea trade, we will start with the American houses, leaving out of the account entirely the profit of the Chinese factors. 1st. The American house in China or Japan makes large profits on their sales or shipments— and some of the richest retired merchants in the country have made their immense fortunes through their houses in China. 2d. The Banker makes large profits upon the foreign exchange used in the purchase of Teas. 3d. The Importer makes a profit of 30 to 50 per cent. in many cases. 4th. On its arrival here it is sold by the cargo, and the Purchaser sells it to the Speculator in invoices of 1,000 to 2,000 packages at an average profit of about 10 per cent. 5th. The Speculator sells it to the Wholesale Tea Dealer in lines at a profit of 10 to 15 per cent. 6th. The Wholesale Tea Dealer sells it to the Wholesale Grocer in lots to suit his trade, at a profit of about 10 per cent. 7th. The Wholesale Grocer sells it to the Retail Dealer at a profit of 15 to 25 per cent. 8th. The Retailer sells it to the Consumer for ALL THE PROFIT HE CAN GET. When you have added to these EIGHT profits as many brokerages, cartages, storages, cooperages and waste, and add the original cost of the Tea, it will be perceived what the consumer has to pay. And now we propose to show why we can sell so very much lower than other dealers. We propose to do away with all these various profits and brokerages, cartages, storages, cooperages and waste, with the exception of a small commission paid for purchasing to our correspondents in China and Japan, one cartage, and a small profit to ourselves—which, on our large sales, will amply pay us. By our system of supplying Clubs throughout the country, consumers in all parts of the United States can receive their Teas at the same prices, with the small additional expense of transportation, as though they bought them at our warehouses in the city. Some parties inquire of us how they shall proceed to get up a Club. The answer is simply this: Let each person wishing to join in a Club say how much Tea or Coffee he wants, and select the kind and price from our Price List, as published in the paper or in our circulars. Write the names, kinds, and amounts plainly on the list as seen in the Club Order published below, and when the Club is complete send it to us by mail, and we will put each party's goods in separate packages, and mark the name upon them, with the cost, so that there need be no confusion in their distribution—each party getting exactly what he orders, and no more. The cost of transportation the members can divide equitably among themselves. Parties sending Club or other orders for less than thirty dollars had better send Post-office Drafts or money with their orders, "to save the expense of collection by express; but larger orders we will forward by express, to collect on delivery. Hereafter we will send a complimentary package to the party getting up the club. Our profits are small, but we will be as liberal as we can afford. We send no complimentary package for Club of less than $30. Parties getting their Teas of us may confidently rely upon getting them pure and fresh, as they come direct from the Custom House stores to our Warehouses. We warrant all the goods we sell to give entire satisfaction. If they are not satisfactory they can be returned at our expense within thirty days, and have the money refunded. The Company have selected the following kinds from their stock, which they recommend to meet the wants of Clubs. They are sold at cargo prices, the same as the Company sell them in New York, as the list of prices will show. PRICE LIST OF TEAS. Oolong (Black), 70c., 80c., 90c., best $1 per lb. Mixed (Green and Black), 70., 80c., 90c., best $1 per lb. English Breakfast. (Black), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 20 per lb. Imperial (Green), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb. Young Hyson (Green), 80c., 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb. Uncolored Japan, 90c., $1, $1 10, best $1 25 per lb Gunpowder (Green), $1 25, best $1 50. Coffees Roasted and Ground Daily. GROUND COFFEE, 20c., 25c., 30c., 35c., best 40c. per pound. Hotels, Saloons, Boardinghouse keepers, and Families who use large quantities of Coffee, can economize in that article by using our FRENCH BREAKFAST and DINNER COFFEE, which we sell at the low price of 30c. per pound, and warrant to give perfect satisfaction. Consumers can save from 50c. to $1 per pound by purchasing their Teas of the GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., Nos. 31 and 33 Vesey street. Post Office Box, 5,643 New York City. CLUB ORDER. EDWARDS, ST. LAWRENCE CO., N. Y., June 3, 1867. THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA COMPANY, Nos.31 and 33 Vesey street New York. DEAR SIRS: I herewith send you another order for Tea. The last was duly received, and gives general satisfaction. As long as you send us such good Tea, you may expect a continuation of our patronage. As a further evidence that the subscribers were satisfied, you will observe that I send you the names of all those that sent before who were near out of Tea, with a large addition of new subscribers. Accept my thanks for the complimentary package. Ship this as the other, and oblige. Your ob't servant, DAVID C. McKEE. 4 lbs. Japan, J. Havens . . . . . . . . . . at $1 25 $5 00 5 lbs. Japan, J. Havens. . . . . . . . . . .at 1 00 5 00 1 lb Gunpowder, J. Havens. . . . . . .at 1 50 1 50 1 lb. Japan, S. Curtis. . . . . . . . . . . . .at 1 25 1 25 2 lbs Young Hyson, S. Curtis. . . . . at 1 00 2 00 1 lb Japan, N. Shaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . at 1 00 1 00 1 lb Young Hyson, N. Shaw. . . . . . .at 1 00 1 00 3 lbs Young Hyson, R. McCargen. .at 1 25 3 75 2 lbs Green, R. McCargen. . . . . . . . at 1 25 2 50 4 lbs Green, Wm. Barraford. . . . . . at 1 25 5 00 1 lb. Gunpowder, A. H. Perkins. . . . at 1 50 1 50 ———— And ten others, making total. . . . . . . . . . . $51 05 N. B.—All villages and towns where a large number reside, by clubbing together can reduce the cost of their Teas and Coffees about one-third (BESIDE THE EXPRESS CHARGES) by sending directly to "The Great American Tea Company." BEWARE of all concerns that advertise themselves as branches of our Establishment, or copy our name either wholly or in part, as they are bogus or imitations. We have no branches, and do not in any case authorize the use of our name. POST OFFICE orders and drafts make payable to the order of the Great American Tea Company. Direct letters and orders to THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., Nos. 31 and 33 Vesey st., N. Y. POST OFFICE BOX 5,643 NEW YORK CITY. THE GALAXY FOR 1868. THIS (December) number completes the fourth volume of THE GALAXY. With increased experience of the wants of the public, and much greater resources, the publishers are confident of their ability to make the succeeding volumes of the magazine still more valuable and attractive than those already issued. Their aim is to make THE GALAXY a magazine which, while it shall always be readable and entertaining, shall also maintain a high standard of literary excellence ; possessing significance to the thoughtful reader, at the same time that it offers lighter matter for those who seek merely recreation in the pages of a magazine. Among the special features of THE GALAXY for the new year will be : I. A series of articles on a timely subject, by WILLIAM SWINTON, the well-known historian of the War. II. A series of papers by Rev. ROBERT COLLYER, of Chicago, on subjects of practical interest. III. RICHARD GRANT WHITE will complete his valuable series of papers on " Words and Their Uses," and will follow them with other significant papers. IV. GEORGE WAKEMAN, whose humorous articles on subjects of curious research have attracted so much interest, will explore new fields of literary curiosities. V. Professor BLOT will continue to furnish his valuable papers on Cookery. VI. A new and very striking serial story will be commenced upon the completion of "Steven Lawrence, Yeoman." It will run for several months, and be followed in turn by a new novel by a distinguished author. VII. Arrangements have been made which will secure to THE GALAXY contributions from the most distinguished writers of England and France. VIII. Contributions may also be expected from the following regular contributors to THE GALAXY : HORACE GREELEY, WALT WHITMAN, EDMUND C. STEDMAN, C. GODFREY LELAND, CLARENCE COOK, H. T. TUCKERMAN, HENRY JAMES, Jr., Mrs. EDWARDS. Rev. JOHN WEISS, EUGENE BENSON, JULIUS WILCOX, Mrs. R. H. DAVIS, GEORGE M. TOWLE, Mrs. W. H. PALMER, FRED. B. PERKINS, Mrs. JANE G. AUSTIN, ROSE TERRY, JOHN ESTEN COOKE, MARIE HOWLAND, C. 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In proof of which, the following OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE of the President and Members of the International Jury on Musical Instruments (Class X) is subjoined : PARIS, July 20, 1867. I certify that the FIRST GOLD MEDAL for American Pianos, has been unanimously awarded to Messrs. Steinway by the Jury of the International Exposition. First on the list in Class X. MELINET, President of International Jury. Members of the International Jury. GEORGES KASTNER, AMBROISE THOMAS, ED HANSLICK F. A. GEVAERT, J. SCHIEDMAYER, This unanimous decision of the International Class Jury, endorsed by the Supreme Group Jury, and affirmed by the Imperial Commission, being the final verdict of the only tribunal determining the rank of the awards at the Exposition, places THE STEINWAY PIANOS AT THE HEAD OF ALL OTHERS. THE "SOCIETE DES BEAUX ARTS," (Society of Fine Arts, of Paris, known throughout Europe as one of the highest authorities on Music and Art Matters), unanimously awarded their only annual Testimonial Medal for 1867 to STEINWAY & SONS for the highest degree of perfection, most valuable inventions, and as exhibiting the greatest progress in the art of Piano-making, above all other exhibitors, at the Universal Exposition in Paris. STEINWAY & SONS Were also awarded a FIRST PRIZE MEDAL at the great International Exhibition, London, 1862, for powerful, clear, brilliant and sympathetic tone, with excellence of workmanship, as shown in Grand and Square PIANOS, in competition with 269 Pianos from all parts of the world. STEINWAY & SONS, in addition to the above, have taken thirty-five First Premiums, Gold and Silver Medals, at the principal Fairs held in this country, from the year 1855 to 1862 inclusive, since which time they have not entered their Pianofortes at any Local Fair in the United States. EVERY PIANO IS WARRANTED FOR FIVE YEARS. WAREROOMS, FIRST FLOOR OF STEINWAY HALL. Nos. 109 and 111 East Fourteenth Street, Between 4th Ave. and Irving Place, NEW YORK.The Church Union. "THE FREEST ORGAN OF THOUGHT IN THE WORLD." Owing to the unprecedented reception of this paper, it has been enlarged to double its original size, and is now the largest, best, and most liberal, as well as cheapest, family newspaper in the world. It is the organ of no sect, but will aim to represent every branch of the Church of Christ, as well as every society organized for the purpose of Evangelizing the world. 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ALBERTSON, Superintendent, No. 103 Fulton street, N. Y. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT IS NOW READY IN BOOK FORM. One vol., large octavo, elegantly illustrated, bound in cloth. Price $2. Every reader of the GALAXY will desire to have this most remarkable book in a permanent form. It is worthy of being re-read by every reader of the GALAXY, and of having a prominent place in the library. IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN NOVELS. The New York Times says of it: There is little doubt that, as a book, "Waiting for the Verdict" will command much attention. It is not only the most elaborate work of its author, but it is one of the most powerful works of fiction by any American author. The Sexton's Tale and other Poems, by THEODORE TILTON, Editor of the New York Independent. Illustrated by an ornamental title page and elegant tail pieces for each Poem, printed on tinted paper, and bound with bevelled boards, and fancy cloth. 1 vol., 16mo. Price $1 50 This is the first collected edition of Mr. Tilton's poems, many of them as sweet as anything in our language. The Life and Labors of Francis Wayland, D. D., LL.D., late President of Brown University, by his sons, HON. FRANCIS WAYLAND and REV. H. L. WAYLAND. 2 vols., 12mo. Illustrated by two steel plate likenesses of Dr. Wayland. Price $4. This will be a most interesting memoir of one of those noble specimens of a man who now and then appear and direct and give tone to the thoughts of their generation. The volumes will be enriched by Dr. Wayland's correspondence with most of the leading men of his day. A new Enlarged Edition of Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book, AND YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER'S ASSISTANT. A chapter on Carving has been added, and a very large number of new recepts, with special reference to economy in cooking. 1 vol., 12mo. Price about $1 50. Any of the above sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. SHELDON & CO., PUBLISHERS., 498 and 500 Broadway, New York.THE GALAXY. DECEMBER, 1867. CONTENTS. I.—STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. By Mrs. Edwards.... PAGE. 885 (With an Illustration by Gaston Fay.) Chapter XXVIII.—MARRIED. XXIX.—BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. XXX.—OUT OF TUNE! XXXI.—MRS. LAWRENCE AT HOME. II.—DEMOCRACY. By Walt Whitman.... 910 III.—OUR GOLDEN WEDDING. By T. W. Parsons.... 933 IV.—THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. By Olive Logan.... 934 V.—BOATING. By D. M..... 941 VI.—WORDS AND THEIR USES. By Richard Grant White.... 943 VII.—A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. By M. A. Cary.... 950 VIII.—WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. By Rebecca Harding Davis.... 957 Chapter XL.—THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DAY. XLI.—CHIVALRY'S HARVEST. XLII.—OLD WRONGS RIGHTED. XLIII.—INTO THE SILENCE. XLIV.—HOME. XLV.—JOHN BRODERIP. IX.—SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. By James O. Noyes. 989 X.—HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. By Richard Frothingham.... 994 XI.—NEBULÆ. By the Editor.... 1005 Containing: THEODORE TILTON'S POEMS PUMPKIN PIE. SHAKESPEARE, NEWTON AND GRAVITY. THE LOOKED-FOR FALL IN PRICES. The Galaxy may be obtained from any newsdealer. Subscription price $3 50 a year; invariably in advance. Two copies will be sent for $6; five copies for $14; ten for $15; twenty for $50, and one to the getter-up of the club; each additional copy $2 50. Volumes I., II. and III. of THE GALAXY, containing the numbers from one to twenty-four, are now completed and may be obtained from any bookseller or newsdealer, or may be ordered from the Proprietors. Price $3 per volume, bound in cloth. The three bound volumes and the Magazine for one year will be sent for $11. Subscription may commence at any time, but when no time is specified, the numbers will be sent from the beginning of the current volume. Subscriptions should be addressed to W. C. & F. P. CHURCH, No. 39 Park Row, New York. In remitting, drafts on New York or Post-Office orders, payable to W. C. & F. P. CHURCH, are preferable to bank notes, as they can be renewed if necessary without loss to the sender. The postage on THE GALAXY is Six Centers a quarter, to be paid in advance at the Post Office where received. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by W. C. & F. P. CHURCH, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.LORD PETERS! SHE CRIED. STARTING UP.---p. 904. THE GALAXY. ______ DECEMBER, 1867. ______ STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. By Mrs. Edwards, Author of "Archie Lovell." ______ CHAPTER XXVIII MARRIED. THEY never met alone after this day. Every forenoon, at the same hour precisely, Steven arrived--to go through his courtship; occasionally was made to stay for lunch; once or twice came, by set invitation, to dinner. But Katherine saw him alone no more. She was thoroughly gracious to him in her manner before Dora; with a generosity that alternately angered and stabbed him with contrition, did her utmost to bring out whatever good there was in her cousin's character in his presence; whenever it chanced that strangers were by, would show, by a sweet and unaffected familiarity toward him, that Dora's own relations, at least, saw no misalliance in the approaching marriage. "If she has no heart," he would say to himself, every time he quitted her, "she is so perfect an actress, has a tact so excellent in her way of imitating one, that a man might pass his life, in heaven, at her side and never be sensible of the deficiency." The very quality, in short, which he had held to be the canker, the flaw of her nature, becoming a new and cogent reason for him to love her the more! The engagement, happily, was not a long one. The business arrangements connected with the marriage were son over; Steven absolutely refusing to touch a farthing of his betrothed's small dowry, and insisting that capital and interest should be left in her hands; and after this (a week in London having sufficed to buy more silks and laces than there seemed a possibility of ever wearing in Ashcot) Dot began to think that she need not make the poor fellow wait any longer. October was a pleasant month in Paris: cool, yet sufficiently Summer-like to be out-of-doors all day; it was an idle time, too, dear Steven said, on the farm, and everything at Ashcot would be ready for her reception. As well as let the first of October, a fortnight from the present time, be fixed for the wedding- 56886 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. day. Laces and silks being temporarily in abeyance, the question of wedding-guests was now an all-important one to Dot's mind. Katherine's advice was to keep the marriage absolutely private; none but members of their own family present, or such friends of Steven's as he chose to invite. But to this Dora would not listen. "It looks exactly as if we were ashamed of it," she said. "When you are married to Lord Petres you may have a hundred guests, or six, and the world will still call it right. In marrying a man like Steven, unless I take up a position at first, show that I mean to raise him to my class instead of sinking to his, no one will ever visit me at all. I am quite determined to have the Ducies for bridesmaids and Lady Haverstock and everybody else at the breakfast. As to asking any of Steven's friends," added Dot, "it is out of the question. I have spoken to him about it, and he wishes to leave every arrangement regarding the wedding in my hands." And so to poor Katherine fell the task of bringing the Ducies of Ducie, proud old Lady Haverstock and "everybody else," together at the wedding-feast of Steven Lawrence of Ashcot! A less gifted tactician would certainly have failed in the attempt. The older people, remembering the Lawrences as plain working yeomen—at a time when yeomen, as a class, existed—would almost as soon, under ordinary circumstances, have thought of appearing at the marriage of a day-laborer; younger ones looked upon Steven much as they looked upon Mills, the horse-dealer, or any other of Lord Haverstock's boon companions in the village; and had cards or invitations been sent out in the usual fashion it is doubtful whether a single acceptance would have been the result. Katherine's line of diplomacy was this: She rode over alone one morning to see lady Haverstock; had a long confidential talk with her about the marriage, then, just as she was leaving, asked the old lady affectionately if she would be present at it. "Steven Lawrence is not, I dare say, what these good people—people half of them of yesterday themselves!—would call a gentleman," said Katherine, "so we shall have a very quiet, homely wedding. Lord Petres, I hope, will be here for it, and his sister, if Lord Scudamore is better. Dear Lady Haverstock I hope you will please Dora and Mamma by coming to the church to look at us?" Lady Haverstock, with Katherine holding her hand and waiting for her reply, could, of course, do nothing but accept; and, after this, no further invitations were sent out. People began to talk, to wonder, to feel angry that they were not asked. "Lady Haverstock and her son, and Lord Petres," said the Miss Ducies of Ducie, "and the Countess of Scudamore, and to leave us out! We had better go and call. It would be very disagreeable to have any coolness with the Hilliards now"—that Katherine Fane was engaged to marry Lord Petres! So the Miss Ducies came to call, STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN 387 asked in tones of interest about Dora's wedding-dress; were quite anxious to know Mr. Steven Lawrence; had seen him several times with Lord Haverstock, and thought him so like the picture of the Emperor of Austria—was it possible Miss Fane did not see the likeness? finally were told by Katherine that they might come to Clithero church, arrayed in natural flowers and white muslin dresses, on the first, if they chose. With Lady Haverstock and her son as guests and the Miss Ducies as bridesmaids, the difficulty now was rather whom to leave out than whom to invite. Everybody accepted; everybody, if they did not think Steven like the Emperor of Austria, though him a young man of decided promise, a young man whose future, after he married Dora Fane, would lie in his hands; and as the day approached, Dot, with an exultant heart, felt that a dozen of the most exclusive people in Kent, people, many of whom had not gone to Arabella's wedding, would be present at hers. A dozen or fifteen irreproachable people as wedding guests, Lord Haverstock (for this Dora herself had intrigued) as best man, with Katherine, the two Miss Ducies, and old Grizelda Long, the Phantom, as she was more generally called among her friends, as bridesmaids. But as Grizelda is destined to play a part of greater importance than that of bridesmaid in the drama of Steven's marriage, she must be allowed to make her bow with formality on first appearing before the footlights. Who was Grizelda Long? Had she a mother? had she a brother? No one knew. She had gone on leading her phantom, nomadic existence until people had ceased to speculate whether she had human relationship or not, had ceased, indeed, to regard her otherwise than as a dispensation of Providence, an ultimate fact incapable of solution or analysis—a dreaded presence which even a woman like Mrs. Dering had not the courage to expunge from her balls and at homes—it was at wedding festivities, above all others, that the face of Grizelda Long (like the flower-crowned death's-head of the Egyptians) was certain of being seen. The clerk and per-opener at St. George's knew her well; to the young men from Gunter's she was familiar as one of the plaster-of-Paris devices upon their own cakes. If a bride was making a good marriage, Grizelda must not be left out, because the poor dear creature had really been so indefatigable in running about to match silks and spur on milliners for the trousseau, and besides, would have such malicious things to say unless bought off with a bridesmaid's locket. If a bad one, Grizelda must come because she was just one of those amphibious creatures, those human connecting links, who are so convenient as padding or buffers, to put between different strata of guests at a breakfast-table. You might have slipped Grizelda in between a bishop and the most scandalously vulgar of the bride-888 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. groom's relations, and, by virtue of her apologetic, mild flatteries to his lordship, her mysterious latent affinities with the abominable new cousin, have offended neither. What were Grizelda's means of life? There were people who had been intimate with her for a dozen of years who could not answer that question. It was whispered that, somewhere Knightbridge-way, there existed a modest establishment, half lodging, half boarding-house, an establishment held together by a forlorn old maid or two, and a chance Indian widow, and of which poor Grizelda, was, in fact, the chief. But these were whispers only. No ordinary human creature could, for certain, have discharged these domestic duties and at the same time have haunted every ball, and wedding, and flower-show, about town, as did Grizelda. And many persons held it was but the weird ubiquity, the unholy, will-o'-the-wisp-like habits of the creature in pervading, or appearing to pervade, every house of every one she knew, at once, which first called the Knightsbridge legend into existence. No one could, with an approximation to accuracy, fix the epoch at which Grizelda first appeared on earth. Middle-aged matrons, the mothers of tall boys and girls, could distinctly remember her flitting to and fro, match-maker and match-marrer, by turns, in the love-affairs of their youth. Accurate old gentlemen, when closely questioned, would not distinctly swear to any given year in which Grizelda was not. The young and flippant openly believed her to be a sort of unshriven, houseless soul, a wandering female Jew, who had roamed partnerless through ball rooms, an unmated bridesmaid through weddings, from the beginning of time. Grizelda pursued you throughout a whole London season. For three months you could scarcely go to a ball without seeing the well-known battered wreath, the well-known battered face peering, eager-eyed, through folding doors, and up and down staircases, after the young men who had promised (not always unsolicited) to give her a dance, and when the time came, fled! And you went to the Rhine or Paris, and found her there—"travelling with her friends," Grizelda would say; in reality, part dragoness, part courier, to some young woman or women, not quite strong-minded enough to travel alone, and who found the good Grizelda, whether as foil, blind, interpreter, guide or friend, useful. There was no need to be troubled with Conversation Guides or polyglot washing-books when you had got dear Grizelda of your party. For the purposes of luggage or the laundry, she could speak any amount of execrable foreign tongues; and then, it was so impossible to offend Grizelda! And she was so indefatigable in beating up or making acquaintance for you in foreign towns, so good in sleeping up five pair of stairs, or on a sofa, or in going to church when every one else was tired, or fighting over the hotel bills, and it would be so STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 889 easy to have done with her when you got back to town. This last clause, while wishing to pay every other tribute to her virtues, I am disposed to dispute wholly. When Miss Long had once fastened on a friend she generally held to him, and with no wavering grasp. You might ask Grizelda to your house, and she would come, and malign you meekly to every one next day; or you might not ask her, and she would malign you, more meekly still, and regretting that your acquaintance were not quite what she cared to meet. But you could not have done with her. People who, in the heart of a German forest, or on the top of Mont Blanc, weakly asserted such a thing to be possible, would confess afterwards, in sackcloth and ashes, that they had reckoned without their guest. Snubbing only brought the Phantom more humbly to your door step; cutting was no more fatal to her than to an earth-worm; desperate under her persecution, if you laid a hand on what in any other human being had been pride or self-respect, Grizelda would walk away, as unscathed as the daddy-long-legs, who, quiet unconcern, leaves one of his limbs under your finger! Perhaps a little real, honest kindness might have exorcised her, as holy water is said to exorcise other phantoms, but this poor Grizelda never got. People invited her, travelled with her, made every kind of use of her, gave her handsome presents, and said they believed "she was good hearted, and made mischief more from desire of bringing herself forward than from malice." But no one liked her. Was this a test of her demerits? If, instead of being lodged in that curiously unlovely tenement, Grizelda Long's thirst for action and dauntless courage had been the portion of a fairer woman, might not she, when she and time were in their youth, have married and done well? Turned into legitimate channels, were not the elements of more than common worth in this restless, energetic, sympathy-craving nature, that now had soured and hardened into what it was, after long contact with poverty and the world? If the Knightsbridge legend had, as I believe it had, truth in it, did that tell no story of pathetic under-currents in Grizelda's life? When the old face at which Cornet Lightport (invited to attend the ball through Grizelda's agency) had laughed with his gay little partner of seventeen, last night—when the old face that had looked so incongruous under its flowers and in the gas-light, got up in the early gray next morning, to see after the poor, menial duties of the household—that the charwoman had carried home no broken meats over night, that the sardines and new-laid egg were ready for the capricious Indian widow, the stay of the house—must there not have been something almost heroic in its expression? The world has no time to make suppositions; to give credit for bushel-hidden or potential virtues. Grizelda Long was a bitter-tongued890 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. tongued old maid who had once, centuries ago, managed to get herself into society and had miraculously kept her head above water ever since, a creature plain to look at, disagreeable to be with, but whom Mrs. Dering was afraid to leave out of her parties, a creature, and fine, whom every one shook hands with, and whom no one liked. The hard work in the Knightsbridge boarding-house, the courage that could bravely wear a silk dress over an empty stomach, the craving to be up and doing, that, in default of other excitement would make poor old Grizelda head a band of school children on Wimbledon Common, or collect money from house to house to build a pauper church in St. Giles-none of these things did the world take into account. Even Katharine Fane, of all human creatures the aptest to divine whatever real good lay in a man or woman, never could bring herself to see aught but the unloveliness of Grizelda Long. "Of course, every one you wish to have at your wedding shall come, Dot," she said, "even the Phantom, but why not ask her as a guest only? All your other bridesmaids will be young, and tolerably good-looking, remember. Could anything be more grotesque that to see Grizelda Long in white muslin and with natural flowers in her hair, walking at the side of the little Alice Ducie?" But Dora was obstinate. If Grizelda came at all it must be as a bridesmaid. Grizelda would be horribly affronted at finding herself ranked with Mrs. Ducie and the other elderly wedding guests; and Dora would run no risk of forfeiting her good will. Grizelda knew numbers of people in London and Paris, knew people all over the world, and the bride elect, looking forward already to sometimes quitting her husband and Ashcot, foresaw that the day might come in which even the Phantom could be of use to her. That day, alas! came sooner than Dora herself expected. Golden September waned. There were bright, soft noons, and glorious Autumn sunsets, and nights with a ring of sharpness in the air, and a yellow harvest moon shining above the hazy fore- land, and showing the low farm walls of Ashcot, white and distinct across Clithero bay. Never had days and nights seemed, each as it passed, so slow to Katharine; yet never, collectively, had they sped on so quick to an undesired end. The evening of the thirtieth came. For the last time thought over the bitter sweetness of the "day that was dead!" Then came a few hours' broken sleep, feverish dreams, of some wedding party in which she could never tell whether Lord Petres or Steven was the bridegroom, and where, now Dot, now the Phantom, now Alice Ducie, but never herself, stood before the altar, veiled and in orange blossoms; and then Katharine Fane came back suddenly to the truth! found the sun shining and Dora standing STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 891 by her bedside, and remembered with a shudder that it was Steven's wedding-day. " A beautiful dry day!" cried Dot, as much excited about the weather as if she had been going to a flower show or garden party. "Get up quick, Kate. I find Heath has sent my wreath too big after all, and I won't trust any one but you to alter it." "Dear Dora!" said Katharine, holding out her arms to her cousin. "I'm so glad that the sun shines to-day." "So am I," said Dora with sincerity. "An umbrella and over- shoes would spoil the prettiest bride in the world!" Millinery, even on her marriage morning, was the note that ever ran through all Dot's emotions. Honestly, I don't believe she remembered Steven's existence until she saw him waiting for her at the altar, so taken up was she in the white satin and wreath, the veil and bought and monition to which, from her point of view the bridegroom was but an adjunct. And Katharine must do everything for her! Dora's poor narrow heart hated Mrs. Hilliard's maid with a hatred dating back from from the time when this woman had altered the Parisian silk dress for little Kate; and she would neither let her nor Mrs. Hilliard see her until she was dressed. 'Tis the last thing you will ever do for me, Kate," she said, as Katharine fastened on her veil and flowers. "I should have detested myself if any hands in the house but yours had dressed me to-day." And so difficult to please was Dot, so scrupulous about the folds of her veil, the arrangement of the little baby curls, the exact height at which the wreath must be placed upon her forehead, that Katharine had scarcely time for more than a glance at her own face, white as the dress she wore, in the glass, when the Squire knocked at the door, and called out cheerily that the carriages were waiting, and if Dora meant to be married to-day she had no time to lose. It was not a large wedding after all. Lord Petres had not yet returned to England, neither did his sister make her appearance; hence such people as were left out regretted that those who went should have been invited by poor Katharine under false pretenses. Mrs. During, as Dot has foretold, was suffering too severely from one of her old headaches to be able to do more than send her best wishes and a tea-pot and service, something really useful, to the bride. The Squire, Dora, and Katharine, went in one carriage: the three bridesmaids in another; an at the church-for Steven had expressed no wish to be additionally married at Shiloh- Lady Haverstock and her son, with about a dozen other guests, met them. Not a large, but a very charming wedding, public opinion said: did a wedding ever take place in the world that was not called charming? A lovely bride, a handsome bridegroom, young Lord Haverstock as best man, the three prettiest girls in Kent as bridesmaids (long practice had taught poor Grizelda to bow her face down over892 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. her bouquet, and generally keep herself quiet and unseen) and no inauspicious tears or emotion of any kind to mar the effect of the ceremony. When it was all over, Steven, who throughout looked like a man in a dream, had twice to receive whispered admonitions from the old clerk before he collected himself sufficiently to offer his arm to his wife, and take her away to the vestry. "Of course," said the Clithero people, who were looking on from the body of the church, "Master Lawrence was a dissenter, and didn't know the ways of the gentry and the church people." And not all the hand-shaking and congratulations he went through when the signing of names was complete, seemed sufficient to rouse him to a sense of his happiness. Was he really overcome, not master of his own feelings, or only shy, poor fellow, and without manner? The people wondered who had honored him by attending his marriage. When the bride and bridegroom left the church, the crowd of village people who were assembled outside, gave him a cheer, but it was not a very hearty one. Steven Lawrence marrying a niece of the Squire's lady was an event so out of all established order or precedence as to have upset the whole mental equilibrium of the parish, and the cheer rang neither with the hearty respect men would have shown had "Miss Dora" married a gentleman, nor the honest, frank sympathy they would have felt for Steven had he chosen his bride from his own class. He nodded to such of his old friends as he saw, all of whom looked hot and uncomfortable under the salutation; then Katharine's school children came forward, dressed in white to strew flowers, a custom never seen before in Clithero, and set down at once as black papistry; and then Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence entered the Squire's carriage and drove away. "It went off beautifully, did it not?" cried Dot, much as if she had been speaking of private theatricals or a dinner party. "But you were so absent, Steven! I am not sure that you saw whether I looked well or not!" "Indeed, I saw you, my dear, said Steven, turning to her with a curious sort of pity in his face. "I saw you and thought I had never seen you look so pretty before!" And he took her hand, Dot first carefully transferring her bouquet and handkerchief to her lap, and gave it a grasp which made the new wedding ring cut into her little boneless finger. What he answered was strictly true. He had looked at her as she walked up the aisle, upon the Squire's arm; the brilliant skin, the great, dark eyes, the golden, baby locks, all softened and made youthful under the bridal veil, and had thought he never saw her look so pretty before. He had likewise wondered at what period of his life the vision of that doll bride could have appeared before his STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 893 eyes already. And in an instant, the wedding party watching him, marvelling to see with what great good breeding the yeoman awaited his bride!--memory had answered the question. Once, years ago, in New York, he had gone in with some of his mates to see a show of dwarfs. "The real, original General Lilliput and his family," said the advertisement--at all events, an assemblage of mature human creatures between three and five feet in height. And of this weird troupe the principal lady had been dressed as a bride. "The same dress," according to the showman, "that she wore on the occasion of her marriage with the illustrious General." Well, the tiny hands, the consequential walk, the floss-silk hair, the too-pink cheeks of this morsel of humanity all came vividly back before Steven as his bride approached the altar; the resemblance heightened when he heard Dot's voice, harsh and disproportioned as had been the small lady's in the New York show, when pronouncing the first necessary "I will." And the grotesque likeness so haunted him throughout the ceremony that even when he was on his knees receiving the rector's blessing, it was by an effort that he brought himself to feel the sacredness of the place and of what he was about, and not smile. During these ten minutes, which hung a mill-stone round his neck for ever, which separated him irrevocably from the woman he loved, all he remembered was that show in New York! all he felt was the absurd outward incongruity between himself and the kneeling baby of thirty at his side! Probably if some of the men who have gone to execution so staunchly, could have recorded their experience when it was over, they would have told us it was some small stain upon the axe, some accidental irregularity on the cord, which occupied their senses at the last. "I only looked at you once," said Dot, after a time, finding it necessary, if conversation was to be kept up at all, that she should start a subject "and then, I declare, I thought you were smiling! But perhaps it was my own agitation, you know I saw through my tears!" "Your--your tears?" answered the bridegroom absently. A sharp turn in the road had brought into sight the carriage immediately behind them, the carriage which held Katharine Fane, and after this neither of them spoke again till they reached the Dene. "After all, what can one have to talk about!" thought Dot, leaning back and resigning herself to visions of her travelling dress; "the situation admits of no subject of interest. My violet velvet suit, yes, I'm glad the day is turning chilly, nothing looks so English as velvet under a hot sun--velvet toquet, white plume-- great heavens!" for the first time to-day the bride's heart beat quick, "I hope Williams has not packed my toquet away! Did I remember to tell her I had changed my mind about wearing a bonnet!"894 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. The breakfast went off after the manner of all wedding breakfasts. The bridesmaids, of course, ought to have taken their places in due form near the bride; but Lord Haverstock, who had charge of Katharine, got shy and blind at finding himself among so many young women, and led her to the seat where she felt her white cheeks and trembling lips must be surest of notice—exactly opposite, that is to say, to Steven and his wife. Mrs. Hilliard--half imagining herself a bride again, in her silver-gray dress and delicate white lace draperies, sat and shed tears, and murmured about "Dossy," and glanced with hysterical meaning at Dora, until old Grizelda leaned across with her smelling-salts, and a sympathetic hope that Mrs. Hilliard would be able to command her feelings, and only think of the beloved bride’s happiness. The Squire, with real agitation, and real tears in his eyes, made a very bad speech; the rector, with professional rhetoric, a very good one. Steven, when he was called upon, said a few words at least up to the average of bridegroom speeches. Lord Haverstock went through torture horrible to his mother to witness on behalf of the bridesmaids. Finally Mrs. Hilliard looked at the bride, who rose, blushed, fluttered away from the table, and half an hour later was standing in the drawing-room (suit, toquet, plume, all complete) kissing her dear Aunt Arabella, kissing the Miss Ducies, kissing Grizelda, kissing and being kissed by everybody amid a multitude of farewells. Well, who shall say how it chanced? just at this affecting moment of leave-taking the bridegroom, coming out of the dining-room, ran face to face against the principal bridesmaid, who happened to be crossing the hall on some last errand she had to execute for Dora. "Good-by," said Steven, standing still and looking at her hard. "Say good-by to me here, not before all those people." Katharine raised her eyes to his and tried to speak, but couldn’t get out a word. Her lips twitched, her hand turned cold and clammy as Steven caught and held it in his own. "Good-by—and the Lord pardon you!" he said, with a suspicion nearer to the truth than he had ever known before, dimly breaking on him. "Katharine—" and then a door close beside them opened. The hands that, save in friendship, must never meet again, were parted. All was over. This was their last farewell. Katharine took her leave of Dora alone in Mr. Hilliard’s morning-room; and when the bride and bridegroom drove away, Steven looked in vain among the crowd of people who stood at the hall-door to see the happy pair start, for her face. The blood ran in his veins with fever heat as the carriage bore them along to the station where they were to catch the train for Folkestone. He forgot "poor Miss Dora"—forgot that he was her STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 805 husband, forgot everything but the trembling, perfect lips, the claycold hand of Katharine Fane. If he might go back, he thought, hear her say, "I love you, Steven;" feel her arms round his neck, once—and then die! he were well off. And shortly after this he found himself in the waiting-room at the station, mechanically counting packages under his wife’s order, with the station-master, clerk, porters, signal man—all looking at him as if he was a natural curiosity. And then the train came up, and he and Dora got into a carriage, full (with a sense of relief he recognized this) of other people; and Katharine Fane and his love belonged forever to the past, and he had started on his wedding tour! The tidal train, which would have taken them to Folkestone exactly in time to meet the boat, did not stop at the small country stations, so they had been obliged to go by the afternoon mail, and when they reached Folkestone there was still an hour and a half to spare before the steamer left. It was six o’clock, the pale, October daylight nearly gone; and, after leaving their luggage at a hotel, Steven proposed that they should saunter out on the beach to make the time pass. "Ah—yes!" said Dot, not fond of walking at any time, and thinking, especially at present, of the dainty boots, the violet velvet in which her journey to Paris was to be made. "It—it won’t rain, I hope?" Then she put her hand, for the first time, under her husband’s arm, and, somewhat silently, they went away together for their walk. There had been rough winds for two or three days before in the channel; and, though the sea was calm now, a high spring-tide rolled in with heavy breakers on the shore. Nothing can well be mournfuller than the sound of the sea in weather like this—oppressive silence for a minute, then a prolonged, deep moan all along the beach, then silence again—and a gray sky overhead! an expanse of gray, cold water vaguely stretched before you in the twilight! When they had walked some way—miles it seemed to Dora, who was tortured by the shingles, and almost running to keep pace with Steven’s long stride—"I—I don’t like the sound of the sea at all," she cried. "It looks calm, but I’m certain there is a heavy swell; and nothing makes me so ill as that." Dot had the true French horror of the sea and sea-sickness. "Now, don’t you think I shall suffer dreadfully, Steven?" Steven had not heard the first part of what she said, and stopped short. "Suffer? my dear, you shall never suffer if I can help it!" he said, stooping down over her, and with a great tenderness in his voice. Something at this instant—the pressure of her hand, perhaps her faltering voice, for she was really tired and out of breath—had, for the first time to-day, reminded him that Dora was 896 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. not merely a puppet in the wedding-show, but a poor, helpless, friendless little woman, dependent on his love for the happiness or misery of her future life. And all the manhood of his nature was stirred by the thought. She was his wife. She, Dora Fane (not the beautiful-lipped ghost who stood a movement ago at his side), had loved him; cast in her lot, for good or for evil, with his. "If I can shield you, Dora, you shall never know what it is to suffer again!" And he caught her -- for it was dark and they had wandered far away from houses -- and held her almost passionately to his breast. "Oh--dear Steven!" cried Dora, in a stifled voice, "I know you will be everything that is good to me, only--" "Only?" said poor Steven, still holding her to his side. "Tell me, Dora--let there be no secrets between us from the first?" "Only my feather," said Dora, putting her hand up to the velvet toquet. "You know, dearest, this is the hat I have got to travel in to Paris!" CHAPTER XXIX. BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. "WE are perfectly happy," wrote the bride at the end of a week. "The weather is delightful, Paris full--I will tell you about dress when I see you--and Steven everything that is kind and good. What a pity the only place fit to live in on earth should be so expensive! My dear Kate, tell Uncle Frank the whole of his present is gone already, and our hotel bill not paid. To give you an idea of prices--bonnets, small as they are, cost sixty francs. Sixty francs for about three square inches of blond and tulle, and you can't get one under! I don't think, on the whole, dearest Steven is as pleased with Paris as I expected him to be." "And shows his sense, too," said the Squire as Katharine read aloud this part of her cousin's letter. "I'll tell you what, Kate, if they were in any other place in the world, and Dot talked of cash running short, I should send them some, as a matter of course--I know very well Lawrence can't be over-flush of ready money just now--but the best thing that can happen to them in Paris is--to be obliged to leave it. Sixty francs for three inches of tool!" cried the Squire, testily; "and what need will she have of tool at Ashcot, I should like to know? If her husband wants money to drain his land--and he'll never get a crop until it is drained--I'll help him to every shilling he asks me for; but I'll not help Mrs. Dora to three-inch Paris bonnets. Give her my love, Kate, and say we expect her home at the end of the fortnight." The message was given, and, five days later, old Barbara received STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 897 a letter from the new Mrs. Steven, to say that they would be back on the sixteenth. "Have something to eat in the house," wrote Dot, in a Napoleonic style that stirred Barbara's wrath to its very depths; "a raised pie or cold pheasant will do, as I can't tell you what hour we shall arrive, and make fires throughout the house, and keep the windows open." Every one of which commands Barbara, I need scarcely say, disobeyed flatly. Where was she to get raised pies and pheasants? The master's favorite dish was cold boiled beef and pickles, and cold boiled beef and pickles should be ready for him. As to fires, Barbara had never lit a fire till November yet--except in sickness--and was not going to begin any such extravagance now. And for open windows! she supposed she knew when to open a house and when to shut it without being taught by Steven's fine-lady wife. All the jealous pride of poor old Barbara's heart Dot, with her inherent want of tact, had contrived to ruffle in three or four careless lines; and when the evening of the sixteenth came, and the bride and bridegroom returned, Steven found, before he had been home ten minutes, that his wife and Barbara were enemies, and that his house, as in the old days of Mrs. Joshua and his mother, was to be a battle-field. "You must make allowances for her, Dora," he said, when Barbara, her head erect as a war-horse, had set down a huge piece of beef before them, then stalked in silence from the room. "We must get some younger woman from the village, I see, to wait upon you, and, in the meantime, make allowances for Barbara. You will find the old soul honest and true as steel when you come to know her better." "But because the old soul is true as steel is no reason that I am to eat beef as hard as iron!" retorted Dot. "My dear Steven, you may depend upon it, old servants are mistakes. We had an old housekeeper at the Dene once, and Uncle Frank was always obliged to ask what day he might be allowed to give a dinner-party. No one values honesty more than I do," added Mrs.Lawrence; "but I value health more, and cold salt beef is just one of the few things I cannot digest." "Then I will tell Barbara not to give you cold salt beef again, my dear," said Steven, going on with quiet good appetite at his own dinner. "She knows it is a dish I like, and I suppose got it to please me." "After I had written and told her to have a pie or game, or something light for me! and to have fires lit and the windows open!" cried Dot. "Not one of which orders has she attended to! Steven, is that old creature to be mistress of the house, or am I?" "You are to be mistress of the house, and of everything and everybody in it," answered Steven with the good humor of a man898 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. not vitally interested in his subject. "Barbara, of course, will stay here always, and you - must learn to manage her, my dear. Have what you choose for dinner, have the fires lighted, and the windows shut or open - but please yourself in everything." And this was the tone of all replies in future to his wife's complaints. The sunny October weather turned before long to chill wind and rain, and Dot, shut/up indoors, with only her finer to amuse her, and, with old Barbara's sullen face for companionship, became about as much as bored as you could well imagine a bride to be. Steven was out of doors from morning to night, either at his breaking in his horses for the coming hunting season ("like a man possessed," his wife would say to him; "you seem afraid to sit quiet for five minutes together with your own thoughts!"); but of an evening, and at his meals, he had very little save complaints to listen to. It was horribly dull. It was very strange none of the country people came to call. It was very selfish of Kate to choose this time to be away - Katharine was staying with Mrs. Dering at Brighton. For ten days Dora had sat in different Parisian dresses of an afternoon, and had not seen the face of a single visitor yet. What did make the parlor-fire burn so badly? Was it necessary for her to walk all the way to Shiloh on Sunday, or not? And to these and to a hundred more small discontents Steven's answer was ever the same. He was sorry no one had called. He would have a new grate put in the parlor. It was not at all necessary for Dora to walk to Shiloh on Sunday, unless she liked. And then away out of doors again the moment his food was swallowed; to remain there until the next meal-time, or until nightfall brought him per force into the house again. "If only he would contradict me sometimes!" Dot would think when he was gone. "Contradict me and not get everything done with such horrible obedience, and - and try to look up some one - something in the shape of amusement for me!" Then, after gazing wearily through the wet windows at the wetter garden, she would go away to her room, to look over her dresses and her bonnets, and speculate as to the chance of wearing them, and wonder whether a wedding-ring, and a house of your own, and a change of surname did make the country one jot more endurable, or not? With November came a glimpse of brighter weather again; and at last, one fine afternoon, Mrs. Ducie, of Ducie, and her daughters came to call at Ashcot. Dot, heroic in her small way, and undisheartened by three weeks of fruitless labor at her glass, was elaborately dressed, embroidering at her parlor fire, when these, her first visitors, were ushered in by Barbara's grim voice. She had studied a new way of wearing her short, fair locks in Paris, which gave her more than ever the porcelain marchioness air; STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 899 her complexion, helped by friendly half-light, was beautifully carmine- and-pearl; her dress, her ear-rings, her brooch - all were in the reigning mode of Paris eccentricity: and all, word by Steven Lawrence's wife at Ashcot, looked about as much out of place as old Barbara, driving in a fine carriage, would have looked in Rotten Row, or in the Chaps Elysées! Nothing could be more civil than the manner of Mrs. Ducie and her daughters. They were quite pleased to see Mrs. Lawrence looking so well; had no idea Ashcot was so delightfully situated; hoped that they would soon see her at Ducie, but if Mr. Lawrence was busy she must not think about returning a formal visit; and as soon as they left the house, fell to wondering at Mrs. Lawrence's want of taste and good feeling in dressing as she did. A plain, neatly-made black silk, or sensible merino, would have looked so much better in that homely farm parlor: and oh! what a pity Miss Fane, or some one who cared for her, did not tell the poor little woman to be less theatrical, less meretricious in her style of making-up? So decided Mrs. and the Miss Ducies; while Dora, watching their grand carriage and livery servants as they drove away, asked herself if the best country society was a prize, when it took the form of morning visits, of very great intrinsic worth after all. The Ducies had been perfectly civil, perfectly king; but Steven's wife was acute enough to detect the tone of patronage which ran through the civility and all the kindness. They had visited her as the Squire and Kate visited the other farmers' wives at Christmas; as Steven Lawrence's wife, in short, not as Lord Vereker's grand-daughter. And the first tears Dora had shed since her marriage, rose into her eyes at the mortification of this thought. A day or two later came old Lady Haverstock, who stayed exactly seven minutes, and urged Mrs. Lawrence to take an active part in the village clothing club - mainly on the ground that this charity was not confined to church people, but open to all sects and denominations ("as if I cared for sects and denominations!" thought Dot). And after this, one by one, the other people who had been present at her wedding breakfast, called or left cards; and Mrs. Lawrence knew that her visiting list was complete, as far as people of her own former class was concerned. What was to be her amusement, her occupation in life? she asked herself blankly. On the first Sunday after her return she had gone with her husband to Shiloh. Steven, remembering, perhaps, her former confessions of Evangelicanism and love for the "word unadorned," seemed to take it as a matter of course that she should do so; and Dot for the moment felt really diverted at the idea of appearing among all the plain village Methodists in her new character. Any bit of imposture, was a diversion to her, so900 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. long as it work the gloss of novelty; and she chose her simplest dress and bonnet for the occasion, and pinned a flower in her waistbelt and tripped into Shiloh at Steven's side with a Methodist hymnbook in her hand, and sang at the top of her voice in the hymns, and indeed played the whole part out very prettily. This was well enough for once. Next Sunday she went again, but the situation had lost its piquancy. The congregation sang through their noses; and the close air gave her a headache; and the old minister's sermon lasted an hour. Could people be expected to go to a place of worship where were were sermons an hour long and no convenience whatever for falling asleep? And this Shiloh experiment was repeated in a dozen different forms in her secular life. For once, she played at going through dairy work - actually printed a tiny pat of butter with her own hands; for once, she gardened; for once, sorted the house linen; for once went about the farm with Steven; and every time was amused; and every time she attempted to go through the same thing again, found some excellent reason for being worn out with fatigue in five minutes. To make a human being who has detested the country for fifteen years, take to it with good will at thirty, the miracle of love would be needed. And so such miracle worked for Dora! It was her fate, she felt, always to fall into the groove of life for which she was least suited. In a hundred other positions - in any other position, she began to think, she would have done better, or at least, have wearied herself less. Why, the lives of the washing-girls in the Faubourg St. Marceau, seemed a bright, a varied lot when she looked back to it (Autumn rain against the window, and only the burring tick of the old kitchen clock to interrupt her thoughts) from her lonely parlor at Ashcot. Beating clothes, Winter and Summer, in the cloudy water of the Bievre might not be in itself a genial employment; but at least these bands of French girls beat in company; and chattered of their lovers, and laughed gayly as they worked, and had their balls on Sunday, and society and some kind of excitement all the days of the week. The lot of people on the stage had ever seemed to Dot one with witch, despite its hard work and scanty pay, she had been well contented. and the life of a woman of the world, like Mrs. Dering; a life with money, good position, society, operas, balls fashionable church-going -- ah, how easy it would have been to her to be a good wife and pleasant hostess, and admirable member of society in a position like that! Anything but solitude, absence from human faces, remoteness from the show and noise and movement of the world. Anything but the self-contained, unbroken life, which in these early days of marriage a young wife, if love be in her heart, wishes so fondly, so jealously to prolong! thus went by the first few weeks of Dot's new existence. She STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 901 possessed too little depth of feeling to be really and acutely unhappy. The coldness that Steven's patient kindness to her so thinly masked, gave her slight concern; the consciousness of her own chill and bankrupt heart did not corrode her peace. Her life was dull, duller even than it had been before her marriage; this was all. And still, and while she would run a dozen times a day to meet her husband with a kiss, and while she had spoken to no younger man than old Mr. Lyte, the minister, since her return to Ashcot, Steven's future rival already existed in Dora's imagination! "If a man of my own class, of my own ideas, had married me," was her constantly recurring thought, "rich or poor, loving or not loving him, I should at least have some society, at least have the possibility of amusement before me yet!" And although she never, even to herself, admitted that it was so, the man of her own class, and of her own ideas, meant, a man like Mr. Clarendon Whyte. CHAPTER XXX. OUT OF TUNE! MEANWHILE, Mr. Claredon Whyte himself, was walking about the Brighton cliff, beautiful as ever, with faultless gloves, Hyperion locks and perfumed cambrie, or taking his varied drive from Hove to Kemptown, and from Kemptown to Hove, in that mail-phaeton, with its pair of roans, for which no man has yet known how Clarendon Whyte paid - - perfectly oblivious that such a person as Dora Lawrence existed. If, as Dora to the last hour of her life believed, he had really cared for her before Arabella adroitly turned his affection aside, it must be conceded that Arabella had effected the work of alienation thoroughly. Mr. Clarendon Whyte was just as devoted an adherent to the Dering household here at Brighton, as in the days when Dora shared, or believed she shared his attentions in town; rode with Mrs. Dering when the General was too gouty to mount his horse; walked with her when the evening air was too sharp for the General's asthma; drove out her eldest boy twice a week in his mail-phaeton, and dutifully ate all such meals as he was invited to eat in Mrs. Dering's house. The world still observed its old charitable reticence on the score of this friendship; chiefly, no doubt because Mrs. Dering was one of those women about whom there can be no scandal of moment; a little, perhaps, because Clarendon Whyte's poverty shut him out from the surveillance of mothers of families - - the class from whom handsome young matrons have ordinarily most to dread. It was, when one came to think of it, a very natural intimacy. Mrs. Dering was a thoroughly exemplary wife 57902 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. to the most disagreeable of old husbands. General Dering himself had grown quite fond of the young man's society. And so when Miss Fane came down to Brighton, about ten days after Steven's marriage, the first person she met was her old adversary, Mr. Clarendon Whyte - Mr. Clarendon Whyte still received as a daily visitor, still installed in his post of laquais de place, as of old, in her sister's establishment. "And where is the city heiress then?" asked Katharine, the day after her arrival. "I had hoped Mr. Clarendon Whyte was married - gone and buried ought of sight, forever - ages ago." "The city heiress has proved faithless," answered Mrs. Dering placidly, "if, indeed, she ever had any existence. I wrote you the tale as it was told to me, and whether it was true, on only 'ben trovato,' Kate, we ought to be thankful for the effect it had on Dot. I was always afraid the poor little thing really liked Mr. Whyte in her heart." "A pity she married Steven Lawrence, if she did," said Katharine bluntly. "No woman who had cared for Clarendon Whyte, could love Steven, I am very certain." "Love! repeated Mrs. Dering with the slightest possible sneer round the corners of her well-cut mouth. "My dear child, do you suppose for a moment, Dora would have married any man for love? It would have been bad for Steven - are we all to call Mr. Lawrence, 'Steven,' by-the-by? - if she had. With a man like that it is far better that whatever attachment there is should be upon his side." "I disagree with you entirely," cried Katharine. "Why do we ever speak on subjects like these? We don't understand each other; we talk in different languages! I think it is a shame, a degradation for Steven Lawrence, or for any man, to know that the woman who is to be at his side till one of them dies, came there for any other reason than love!" "Well Kate," said Mrs. Dering, "when you speak in that sort of way, you certainly do use a different language to mine, or to that of any other reasonable being. Look round the world, and say it all the happiest marriages you see are not those which began without a pretence of sentiment on either side. Sentiment is a very pretty thing, Kate, and becomes you admirably, but it won't wear, trust me! A sense of what is right and fitting; prudence, principle - above all, principle - there are the only foundations for solid happiness in marriage." "Principle, yes!" said Katharine dryly; "but then what do you mean by principle? Selfish interest, expediency, worldly advancement, or what?" "By principle, I mean principle," answered Mrs. Dering. "Don't let us attempt word-splitting on such a subject as this. You might almost as well ask me what I meant by right or wrong." STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 903 But, unfortunately, just as Mrs. Dering had taken her lofty moral stand, the entrance of Mr. Clarendon Whyte put a stop to the conversation; and ten minutes afterward Katharine left the house, as her habit was when he entered it, and went out with her small nieces and nephews to build castles on the beach. She found the children's society more welcome than any other during the whole of her visit to Brighton. Mrs. Dering, seeing with real concern that her sister was pale and spiritless, got up constant impromptu dissipations for her amusement; and Katharine went bravely through them all. Dressed, and drove, and danced; yes, sometimes flirted even as of old; then, next morning, when she was with little Bell and Flossy on the beach, knew that these two hours of baby-castle building and listening to baby tongues, were the only hours worth anything to her out of the twenty-four. Until three months ago, her affection for Mrs. Dering had been almost romantic in its girlish depth and warmth. She could see no fault in Arabella; could detect no leaven of worldliness in her character; could imagine no higher ideal to place before herself when she should become Lord Petres' wife, then her sister. And now, Mrs. Dering scarcely spoke without the sense, rather than the words of what she said, grating harshly on Katharine's heart. She recognized, taught by she knew not what new wisdom - the real nature of all which, to her sister, was happiness; saw, with newly- opened eyes, the true picture of a loveless, mercenary marriage; and knew, with a shudder, that where Mrs. Dering would find contentment, she, in the same place, would find despair. "I have had my one chance of happiness in life," she would think an hour later, when she was dressing for a ride or a dinner- party, and her mood had changed, "and let it go. No woman, I suppose, has that sort of love offered to her twice, and I must just take the lot I have chosen, and make the best of it. Run away from Lord Petres when I am married to him? Bring things to a crash? What utter folly! I shall become like Arabella, of course, in time, and be happy with the measure of Arabella's happiness." And, in the meantime, her spirits grew more fitful and her cheeks paler, and people began to say that the beautiful Miss Fane was losing her good looks, and must take care she did not play with Lord Petres too long, if she wished to marry at all. Those waxen complexions always went, alas! in a day, when they did go. The Brighton doctor prescribed steel, the General pompously proposing an addition of cod liver oil. Mrs. Dering dispatched a letter bidding Lord Petres come over to England without delay. "My dear Kate is not positively ill," she wrote, "but I cannot say that I like her looks, and I am afraid she is a little depressed about herself. If you were to come, even for a day, suddenly and without904 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. letting her know that I have written, I am sure that it would do her good." Lord Petres had by this time returned to Paris, after going through his usual Autumnal course of mineral waters at the different baths; and three days after receiving Mrs. Dering's letter, he travelled over dutifully from Calais to Dover, and from thence to Brighton. Brighton, I should say, was the one spot on the face of the globe which he detested most. The glare, the east winds, the nearness to the sea, the cookery to be met with at the hotels; everything in Brighton disagreed with Lord Petres to the very last degree; and it would be difficult to imagine any object more miserable and less lover-like than the poor little fellow presented on the keen November afternoon, when he drove up before Mrs. Dering's house on the East Cliff. An immense seal-skin wrapper entirely enveloped his small figure; a pair of seal-skin gloves were on his hands; the familiar half-shovel hat, without which Katharine had never seen him before, was replaced by a cloth traveling cap, the flaps of which tied down closely round his melancholy white face. He was ushered, still in his wraps, into the drawing-room, where Katharine was alone at the piano, singing low to herself the same "Eurydice" in which Steven had interrupted her that morning at the Dene. "Lord Petres!" she cried, starting up, half inclined to laugh, half to cry, in the surprise of seeing him. "Who in the world would have thought of seeing you? and in Brighton, too!" "I have taken every precaution," said Lord Petres, his slow, solemn voice sounding more welcome, somehow, than it had ever done before to Katharine's ears; "and, as I know that you are unprejudiced, Kate, I have ventured to present myself before you in my traveling dress - armor it may more justly be called, against the inclemency of the Brighton climate." Thus saying, Lord Petres took off his cap and gloves, and seated himself, shivering before the fire. "If you will permit me," he remarked, after the usual kiss on the tips of Katharine's fingers, " I will, for the present, keep my greatcoat on. I am obliged to observe the strictest care on account of the different mineral poisons which are at present in my system. You have not been to Vichy? My dear Katharine, the effects of the Vichy waters are admirable in themselves - Duclos underwent a resurrection there - 'tis the number of waters a man in my complicated state has to take after them, that is the mischief. Vichy requires an after-course of Homburg, Homburg of Baden, Baden of Kissingen, and so on until you become almost as much a walking pharmacopeia as if the physicians had their way on you at home. Now, tell me, perfectly frankly, how I look." "How he looked? Any man but Lord Petres must have asked STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 905 how she was, have noticed her pale cheeks; and Katharine felt grateful to her lover for his selfishness. Poor little Lord Petres! she did like him very dearly, after all. Eccentric, selfish, hypochondriacal though he was, he was real; and reality, in the present sick state of Katharine's soul, seemed to her the very salt of earthly virtues. "I think you look decidedly better, Lord Petres. You have almost a color." "The east wind flushes me, Katharine. You could have mentioned no worse symptom than my apparent color." "Well then, you are stouter. I am quite sure you are stouter." "Thank you," said Lord Petres, with quiet resignation. "I wished to learn the truth, and I knew I should get it from your lips. The object of the whole of the waters I have swallowed has been to reduce what you call my stoutness. They have failed. Let us talk of other subjects." Katharine took a chair beside him and they talked, or rather Lord Petres talked, of Vichy and Baden, the last shape in bonnets, and the last subject he had been studying for his great work on social reform; the accustomed kind of small talk which, from the first week of their engagement, had been the nearest approach ever made by Lord Petres to love-making. At last, Katharine as yet having borne little part beyond yes or no, in the conversation, "And so," remarked Lord Petres, with an amused smile, "you did marry your cousin to the backwoodsman, after all. Where are they? How are they getting on? On purely scientific grounds, the future of those two singularly-mated persons will always be one worth watching." "Steven Lawrence chose to propose to Dot, and Dot chose to accept him, as I told you in my letters," said Katharine, holding down her face. "I had nothing whatever to do with their engagement. They have returned to Ashcot. They spent their honey-moon in Paris, and, my cousin writes me word, enjoyed it wonderfully." Lord Petres shook his head. "That theory about persons enjoying themselves wonderfully during honeymoons is one to which I have devoted a great deal of thought, and all my researches have irresistibly proved it to be a fallacy. I speak of men, you understand: to a certain class of women," said Lord Petres, "no legitimate opportunity of wearing a new dress every day is devoid of interest. But men! Now, why should any man - we will take the back- woodsman for an example - enjoy that first enforced tete-a-tete with his wife, which bears - ironically, one would think - the name of honeymoon? On what experience, what established fact in human nature is the supposition based?" "I - I can quite believe that Dora wrote as she felt," said Katharine, evading any general question about married happiness. "To be in Paris at any time or under any circumstances is Dot's906 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. ideal of human beatitude. Poor little thing, I really feel sorry when I think of her back in the country again." "Sorry for her, or for her husband, or for both?" Katharine did not answer, and Lord Petres looked attentively at her downcast face. "Ah," said he, presently, "marriage, under the most favorable auspices, is a very hazardous undertaking, Kate." "Very," said poor Katharine, with an attempt at a smile. "A much more hazardous undertaking than you though six months ago?" "Yes," she answered, not knowing what was to come next. "I can tell all this from your face. You have been thinking more since I saw you last than you ever did before in your life, and the result of your thoughts has been to take away your color and your spirits. Now, viewing the subject quite dispassionately, do you wish that you were free again?" She looked up at him with a start. "Free! Lord Petres, am I to think--am I to understand?"--she faltered. Little Lord Petres put one of his white hands on hers. "Katharine," he said, "from the first moment of our engagement I think we have spoken the truth to each other. We will do so still. I have not come to Brighton at this time of the year without a cause. Two or three days ago I got a letter from your sister, in which she told me that you were ill, and that letter brought me here." The blood flamed over Katharine's face. "I wish Arabella would let us take care of our own affairs!" she cried. "Should I not have told you myself if there had really been anything important enough to bring you here?" "Well, Mrs. Dering seemed to think not," said Lord Petres, quietly, "and in all these matters Mrs. Dering, I am sure, knows best. You are looking ill, and, notwithstanding my own feeble state, it was right, no doubt, that I should come and see you. Now, we will condense what is to follow. We won't have a long scene like lovers on the stage. You are young, Katharine, and not in love with me--you have been telling yourself so often of late-- and you care not one jot about my being pretty well off. Do you wish to have back your freedom?" From the lips of any other man living Katharine Fane's proud spirit would have resented this question as the cruellest indignity: from Lord Peters she took it straight as it came from his heart--a heart which, however limited its compass, however encrusted with sybarite selfishness, was crystal to its very depths where honor and where integrity were concerned. During their whole engagement this was the moment, perhaps, in which Katharine Fane went nearest to loving him! "You--you have asked me this too suddenly!" she stammered STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 907 "Then take time to give me your answer," said Lord Petres. "I shall leave Dover by the last mail to-night (for I am travelling, Duclos with me, as men travel in Spain, and descend at no hotels on the road), and shall expect your answer, not later than four days hence, in Paris–expect it a little anxiously, as you may know, Kate." She looked round at him with great tears trembling in her eyes. To lose the most trivial fealty that had once been hers was horribly bitter to Katharine Fane: to lose Lord Petres seemed the agony of death to her–now that Steven was lost too! "There is no affection for me in the world," she cried. "You–I did think you would be faithful to me always, and you wish already to give me up!" She drew her hand away from him; and her voice broke down. "Oh dear me–please don't cry!" said Lord Petres, entreatingly, but turning away his head lest he should himself incur risk of agitation. "I thought you did not care for me, Kate! I thought it was only right I should give you a chance of escape–but please don't cry!" "And please don't ever be so cruel to me again!" sobbed Katharine. "Not care for you, indeed! Ah, Lord Petres, what should I have left to care for if you were to turn from me now?" "And so the scene does end like a scene on the stage!" said Lord Petres. "I suppose the playwrights know what they are about, after all! Now, the next thing is, when are we to be married?" "Oh that is quite another question," said Katharine, smiling, but with the tears still on her cheeks. "Because I refuse, in spite of yourself, to give you your freedom is no reason I wish you to be married at once." "At once would be impossible," remarked Lord Petres, gravely, and coming back from the unaccustomed region of emotion and love-making to that of plain matter-of-fact. "I have just hired an apartment for the Winter from some father or uncle of Duclos– hired it at an extravagant price I know, from the way Duclos speaks of his relation's honor and principles, but I had a serious suspicion the rascal meant to leave me unless I obliged him, and 'tis but another form of raising his wages. The apartment will suit me admirably for the present, but I need scarcely tell you, Kate, it is only large enough for a bachelor establishment." "So Tangier will not see anything of us for this Winter," said Katharine. "Do you remember poor papa's first and last attempt at social diplomacy? We decided then, you know, that courtship was the brightest season of life and that we should prolong the brightest season to the utmost. Let us be of the same mind still." Lord Petres deliberated for a minute or two in silence. "Kath-908 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. arine," he said, at last, "it is absurd to speak of courtship between persons who do not court, and more absurd still to believe that any season of life can be bright to a man in my state of health. On referring to my diary this morning I found that we have been engaged exactly one year, eleven months and twelve days. You have told me that you consider three years a fitting term for an engagement; and what I would propose is, that we should be married on the third anniversary of the day when - when the subject was originally mooted. This will be November the thirtieth. Now, have you any objection to be married on that day?" "Not in the least. November the thirtieth seems to me as good a day as we can possibly fix," said Katharine, with a smile; the old feeling that they were two marionette lovers, playing their little parts in a marionette comedy, coming back upon her in full force. "Then we may look upon the matter as definitely settled," said Lord Petres, rising. "There could not be a more favorable time than the present for bringing the proposal before Duclos," he added. "The scoundrel has been in a better temper than I ever knew him since he drank the Vichy water; and, considering the way his relations are robbing me, it is possible he may consent to stay for a year, at least, after my marriage. This I will let you know. To-day is the twelfth. It will probably take a week for Duclos to deliberate - well, by the twenty-first, then, I promise that I will let you know his ultimatum." "And if - if it should be unfavorable?" asked Katherine, as Lord Petres raised her hand to his lips. "Then I shall have exactly eleven months and nine days in which to look out for his successor," he answered, with solemn earnestness. "I believe - indeed Duclos himself says - there is one other artist, an Italian fellow, at present in Vienna, who might suit me, but 'tis doubtful whether a man in his position could enter upon a fresh post at so short a notice - more doubtful still whether I should life long in his hands. Katharine, God bless you! You will forgive me if I cover my head before opening the door?" When Mrs. Dering came home at six o'clock from her ride, Katharine met her with the welcome intelligence that Lord Petres had been to see her, and that the wedding-day was fixed. "It was very thoughtful of you to write to him, Bella," she said, looking up from the place beside the fire where she had been sitting alone in the twilight - you see Lord Petres told me all about it - and I am very glad that I have seen him. It really was time that a term should be fixed to his misery." "and when is it to be, then?" cried Mrs. Dering, radiant, and throwing her arms round her sister's shoulder. STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 909 "On the thirtieth of November, rather more than a year hence," said Katharine, quietly. "Lord Petres himself fixed the day," Mrs. Dering's face of horror and disappointment was a study. "You will play out this game of folly a little too long!" she said, with more temper than it was her habit to show toward Katharine. "The thirtieth of next November! For my sake, please never mention this ridiculous date to any one we know. If you don't intend to marry Lord Petres, Kate - and what has changed you so utterly of late I refrain even from guessing! - it would be better for yourself to say so openly." "Very likely it would," answered Katharine, with perfect humility; "indeed I have been saying the same thing to myself for the last hour, ever since he went away. But then, Arabella, there is the sin of my character. I don't love Lord Petres, yet when he offered to set me free just now I felt that it would be a pain greater than I could bear to give him up." "He -- offered -- to set your -- free!" exclaimed Mrs. Dering, repeating the words with a mechanical, frozen sort of horror. "yes, and if I had been true to him or to myself I would have taken the offer - honestly, generously as he made it!" said Katharine, clasping her hands together in a sort of passion. "But I couldn't. I couldn't bear to lose him. I've never been able to give up any one just at the moment when it would be right and honorable to do so. I am like a miser, wanting to have all, but whose own barren heart can give nothing." She bowed her face down, and gazed with vacant, tired expression into the fire. "The real truth is, my dear Kate, that you want tone. Dr. Goodriche says so. Go and and lie down now for half and hour; we have people coming to dinner, remember, and I will bring you a glass of sherry. You know what Doctor Goodriche said --" "About my taking a glass of sherry whenever I felt out of spirits!" interrupted Katharine. "I wonder how many dozen bottles I should drink a week if I followed his advice! What nonsense doctors are forced to talk sometimes! We might just as well have called in a carpenter because the piano was out of tune, as have consulted poor Doctor Goodriche about me." "And what is the matter with you, then?" said Mrs. Dering, with a desperate feeling that it might be as well to know, as to guess the worst. "It would do you good to speak, Kate. I am a great many years older than you, and I have learned that there is a remedy for nearly every ill under the sun." "I am out of tune," said Katharine wearily. "Everything except Bell and Flossy's voices, is a discord to me. I wake every morning and know that there's a world full of love and a world full of pain and tears around me, and that I am a puppet in the middle of it all. If I died to-morrow, where would be the loss? 'Katharine 910 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. Fane is dead,' some one would say. 'Well, well, her good looks have begun to fade, poor thing!' And some one else, perhaps, 'Ah! she was a woman who lived for her own vanity alone, a woman who never knew the meaning of the word love.' And by to-morrow he would have forgotten me." "Who would have forgotten you, child?" "Who? Why, my imaginary mourner, of course?" cried Katharine, lifting up her face with a laugh. "My dear Bella, to think that you and I of all people living, should surprise ourselves talking sentiment! I've been a little out of spirits, a little bored of late, and what I really do need is what all spiritless, bored young women need - plenty of fresh air, and good, hard, out-of-door exercise. You and the General have been very kind to me, but I believe hunting twice a week and walking with papa through the turnip fields on the remaining four, will be a better tonic for me that all Doctor Goodriche's steel and sherry. Don't think me ungrateful, Bella, but if you please, I'll go back to Clithero to-morrow." There was more color in Katharine's face, more animation in her eyes that evening than there had been for weeks past. "The fact is, Lord Petres was there to-day," Mrs. Dering whispers to her friends. "He came all the way from Paris, poor fellow, to pay us a morning visit, and I think - well, I think I may say that the time for my dear Kate's marriage is definitely fixed at last." CHAPTER XXI. MRS. LAWRENCE AT HOME. ONE of the monotonous afternoons, which were Mrs. Lawrence's daily portion, had set in; Steven away at his work; the kitchen-clock sending its heavy tick-tack, tick-tack, through the silent house, when Barbara threw open the parlor-door, her eyes cast up to the ceiling, and an air of stolid protestation written upon her whole face, as the old servant's manner was when ushering in any of "Mrs. Steven's" morning callers. On the present occasion, Dora had expected to see no one more interesting, than homely Mrs. Lyte, or, perhaps, the doctor's wife, who had not yet paid her wedding visit; and at sight of Katharine she almost jumped up in the air with joy. Here, at last was a human creature in a well-cut skirt and jacket; with the last shape of hat on its head; a human creature from the land of millinery and of the living! "Kate, dear Kate! I didn't expect you for a fortnight. How well you look - no you don't you are thin and pale, but how well your dress suits you! Silk serge, isn't it? You may shut the door, STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 911 if you please" - this to Barbara, who, with coldly curious eyes, had stood to watch the cousins embrace. "Horrid old creature, did she think we wanted her to stop and hear all we've got to say? Oh, Kate, my dear, if you knew what I had to go through with that woman - until I came I do believe Steven and she dined together in the kitchen - take off your hat - it's pretty, but not in the least like what they were in Paris. When did you come? How do I look? Do you like the new way I do my hair?" "It changes you a good deal," said Katharine, with a slight tremble in her voice. "But I suppose people ought to look changed after they are married. I - I think it would have startled me more to find you looking exactly like Dora Fane still." Dora gave a profound sight. "I don't feel like Dora Fane, I'm sure," she said, with a shake of the head. "Sit here, Kate. I can't call it any easy chair, but, alas! it is the easiest the house possesses. Is Brighton full? Is it true the English are beginning to take to large bonnets again? If they are, they make a fatal mistake - Pieffort herself told me nothing larger than that" - Dot held up her own diminutive hand -" will be worn this Winter. But is it true?" The subject of dress lasted at least a quarter of an hour, the bride insisting upon comparing notes, item by item, as to the respective fashions of Brighton and Paris; and this quarter of an hour gave Katharine time to to shake off the first - repugnance (I will make the confession for her boldly!) that she had felt, on seeing Dora in Steven's house, as Steven's wife. "I was tired of Brighton," she said when, the subject of silks and serges exhausted, Dora at last began to question her about herself and the cause of her own pale cheeks. "The driving and walking on the cliff, the dressing and parading, and never being able to get away from people from morning till night, is, to my mind, just the most monotonous life any man or woman could live. There is a hundred times more real excitement in the country than in a town, if one knows where to look for it." "If one does!" said Dot. "Kate, my dear, will you be kind enough to look round this room and tell me the possible excitement to be derived from a life like mine? You hear that sound? tack, tack, tack, like some one driving nails into a coffin! Well, that is the kitchen clock, and that - with the sea moaning and roaring, or the rain pattering on the window - is what I have to listen to from the time I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night. Now look through the window. I declare," cried Dot, "Aunt Arabella was right! If I had gone into another country it would have been something - a change, at least. Here there's no change at all, except that I look across from Ashcot to the Dene, instead of from the Dene to Ashcot. Excitement! I should like you to spend a week912 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. precisely in my place, and see if you would ever talk about excitement in the country again." "I never could spend a week precisely in your place," said Katharine, a sudden flush of color spreading over her pale face. "If I lived - lived on a farm like this, I know that I could make myself happy, because I would spend the whole of my life out of doors. When I am married," went on Katharine, resolutely, "I mean, if I have any influence at all with Lord Petres, to be as much at Eccleston, and as a little in London as possible." "And drive, and ride, and play at model-farming, and superintend the restoration of your old chapel, and convert the poor, and keep a French cook, and have a house constantly full of people - when you don't go away to London or Paris? Ah, I should like that kind of country life extremely myself. But Lord Petres and Steven possess, you must remember, rather different incomes." "I don't think money need make much difference in one's real enjoyment of life," said Katharine; "above all, of country life. But from what you tell me, you never stir out of doors, Dot. You condemn yourself to be miserable! Why don't you ride? Uncle Frank says that Mr. Law - your husband," she brought the word out with an effort, "has two of the best horses in the neighborhood. Try to hunt a bit this Winter, or ride, at least, to see the men, and if you are not strong enough to get about the farm on foot, buy a shooting pony to carry you." "Not I," said Dot. "I hate ponies; besides, what do I want to see on the farm? and I haven't the courage to hunt, even if it would divert me, which it would not. I have no spirits left - that's the truth; I don't believe the place agrees with me. Look at the paper above your head - mildew! and my bedroom is mildewed, and the whole house is mildewed! I've been hoarse ever since the day I came home," said Dot coughed dismally. "And how did Paris amuse you? asked Katharine, with a genuine feeling of pity - for Steven - rising in her heart. "I hoped, from your letters, you were perfectly contented there." "Paris," answered Dot, "was, as Paris always must be to me, delightful, even though I saw it under disadvantages. There's no doubt about it, Kate, Englishmen (and Steven, in spite of all his travels, is an Englishman, heart and soul) don't know how to enjoy Paris a bit." "Don't they, indeed?" said Katharine, shortly. "Not a bit. Just figure to yourself the first day or two we spent there!" Dot's face began to grow animated. "We went, of course, to some great, expensive hotel, rue de Rivoli, recommended by Bradshaw. Solemn dinners, surrounded by silent English people at six, breakfast by ourselves at a huge table with a hundred and fifty empty cups and saucers ranged round it in the morning - STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 913 then off, arm in arm, to see pictures and churches as sent forth by Galignani, and back again to solemn dinner and silent English people at six. Dieu des dieux!" cried Dot, falling back unconsciously upon table d'hôte dinner, and sight-seeing every day tête-à-tête with poor Steven! Well, the third day was Sunday, and, after a good deal of trouble, I got him off to the Bois. It was a bright day and there were bands playing everywhere, and numbers of toilettes to be seen. My own was pretty, Kate - that pale gray silk, you remember, corded and trimmed with groseille, with bonnet with little groseille fathers; I saw that I was regarded as I walked, and felt happy - felt in Paris, for the first time! I told him so, speaking cheerfully, I suppose, as I felt. 'Dora,' said he, 'in the middle of the prairies or of the forest I never felt so utterly alone as I do at this moment.' Did you ever hear such an answer? Wasn't it chilling, say, at the first moment since our marriage that I had had a distraction!" "I believe I can understand the feeling," said Katharine, but she looked straight into the fire, not at Dora. "Among the crowds of people on the Brighton cliff I believe I have often thought the same thing myself," "Well," said Dora, "I, for my part, am very commonplace and matter-of-fact. When I am alone I feel lonely, and when I am in a crowd, yes, without a soul to speak to, I feel I have a society. Don't think in all this, Kate, that I am saying one word against my dear Steven. He is an excellent creature, good and kind to me as he can be, only - about sixty or seventy years behind the rest of the world! Now, I asked him once to take me to Mabille (of course all the world knows it is en règle to go there incognito and with one's husband)' and, unlike Uncle Frank of old! he consented: not, in reality, knowing any difference between Mabille and the Morgue. Well, he had scarcely entered, were just beginning to look on at the first steps of a quadrille, when he turned with a face of horror and bore me off like a whirlwind out of the place. 'My poor lille Dora, forgive me for taking you there!' he said. 'I took you, as you wished to go, in ignorance.' And he continued to talk about his own stupidity and to ask my forgiveness till I was sick to death of the very name of Mabille." "And I like him, I admire him for it," said Katharine, looking up with her cheeks aflush. "I don't know what sort of place Mabille is, but I admire Steven for those old-fashioned, simple ideas he has about what women ought or ought not to do. If a man of the world held them one might think they savored of hypocrisy or affectation, from him they are real. Try to understand him, Dot!" went on poor Katharine, warming. "Try to appreciate the really914 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. noble parts of his character. He showed his - his love for you in this very care, this very delicacy, as to where he took you." For a minute or two Dot looked, thoughtful. "Kate," she said, at last, " you call Steven 'simple,' so, as regards his knowledge of the world, do I, and yet - will you believe me when I say that I don't understand his character one bit? I think sometimes of all the men I have known - men even like George Gordon, whom I detest! or Lord Peters, who has never a word to say to me - and I feel that if I had married any one of them I should have had more in common with my husband , have understood him better, than I do Steven. Now, can you understand what I mean when I say that I never for one hour together feel sure of him?" "I cannot, indeed," answered Katharine. "I should have said Steven Lawrence was a man of whom one might feel surer than of any other." "Well, I don't," said Dot, "and, what is more, I doubt if I ever shall. From the hour of our marriage he has been perfectly kind to me, in his forced, absent way - a dozen times a day at first he used to call me 'Miss Dora!' He hardly ever left my side in Paris. In every way that he could he used to try to please me. All this I felt fully, and yet to often - often, when he has been standing looking out at the window of the hotel, and I have watched his moody face, I have thought if he was once to break away, he was a man to go and lose every shilling he possessed at play, or get into a quarrel and kill some one - in short, commit any act of folly or desperation you like! You will call it a silly fancy, but if I was to wake some fine morning now and find that the had gone straight back to America and left me and the farm forever, I should not be surprised, A feeling I can't give a reason for," cried Dot, "tells me his life isn't enough for him; that Ashcot, though he's never idle for a moment, suits him as little as it does me, and that his perfect good temper when I complain about Barbara or anything, arises less from contentment that from half-sullen, half-indifferent patience. In short, I don't understand him. We live under one small roof - but in different worlds, Voila!" The subject was dismissed; and Dot got out her embroidery and talked of the elaborate capes and dresses she meant to work, trusting Providence might send her the chance to wear them next Summer; and the visitors who had called, and who had not called - the interests, such as they were, of her small world. And on and on as she talked one image was ever present to Katharine - the image that Dot, her unconsciousness, had made so clear of Steven's paralyzed life! The moody-faced man turning round from weary gazing through the Paris window, to call his wife "Miss Dora;"the man with every strong capacity for good of for evil, for keenest pleasure STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 915 or keenest pain, forcing himself by work into a kind of lethargic patience; kind to the poor, unsympathetic little creature who had married him; yet under one small roof, each living in their own widely-separated world - Katharine saw it all. All the first act in this mockery of a marriage, which her vanity, her cowardice had been the means of bringing about. At five o'clock, to a moment, Barbary entered with the tea things. "I did not ring," said Dot, looking up from the table all strewn over and heaped up with embroidery and laces. Barbara stood erect and silent; a rational being performing her own duty of bringing in the master's tea, but having no concern whatever with these two fine wax dolls and their table full of gewgaws and vanities. As she stood so, and while Dot pettishly found herself constrained with her own hands to make room for the tea-tray, Katharine from her corner by the fireside watched the old servant's face. It was a fine strong face, she thought. In spite of its present acid expression, there was plenty of good human kindness about the firm old mouth and keen, deep-set gray eyes. "If I had been Dot, I would have made Barbara like me in three days," she thought. "If, ah, if Dot loved Steven, this woman could not keep from loving her for his sake!" And just then Barbara turned and fastened on her a look so piercing, so bitter-full of contempt, of passionate resentment, that Katharine's eyes sunk abashed to the floor. In that moment it seemed to her that another human soul beside her own knew her secret, and despised her. Team at Ashcot was not a flimsy pretence, like the five o'clock tea of London ladies, but a meal; one of the four good, hearty wholesome meals of the day. " We dine at other people's breakfast hour," said Dot when Barbara had left the room, as if to apologize for the substantial plate of bread and butter, the seed-cake, the preserves which the old servant had set out; "and as the solemnity serves which the old servant had set out; "and as the solemnity the call supper does not occur till half-past nine, one really wants something now, and dear Steven has such an appetite!" As Mrs. Lawrence spoke, a step - the lithe, quick step Katharine knew so well - sounded on the gravel path outside the window. A minute later Dot ran forward, as the parlor door opened, and Steven who, coming in from the dusk to candle-light, could discern no object in the room, took his wife in his arm and kissed her. "My dear Steven!" cried Dot, half pretending, to push him away. "Don't you see, we have a visitor? Here's Katharine come back." Miss Fane rose from her chair and came forward, smiling. The sight of that little affectionate demonstration had furnished her, for the moment, she felt, with abundant self-possession. "How do you do Steven. You will let me call you by your name now? You did not expect to see me sitting by your fire-side, did you?" She held out her hand to him, chill as it had been at the in-916 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. stant they said good-by on his marriage day ; and Steven held it, coldly at first, then, as his eyes grew accustomed to her face, with sudden eager clasp in his. "Why, you have been ill?" he said, as unconscious of Dora's presence, as if she had belonged to another planet. "You are ill now, and I never heard of it." There was such deep, such genuine concern in his voice as he said this, that even Dot, the least sensitive, least jealous of wives, could not help noticing it. "That is what I call a really cheerful greeting!" she cried. "Steven never takes a roundabout road in anything, I must tell you, Kate. If he thinks you look ill, he says so, as you perceive." "Steven is quite right," said Katharine, drawing back her hand, and coming over to Mrs. Lawrence' side. "And unless I mistake, Dot, you told me the same thing. I am ill--I mean, I have been ill--I mean, I don't think Brighton agreed with me." Steven turned round sharply, walked away, his hands thrust into his pockets, to the window, and stood there gazing out without speaking a word, at the darkness. "That is his way!" whispered Dot, getting on tip-toes to reach Katharine's ear. "Just as I told you he used to stand and stare out into the court yard in Paris. "Steven, my dear, after a minute or two, "when you have quite done looking at nothing, perhaps you will be good enough to come to tea. Kate and I are waiting for you patiently." He came obediently, and placed himself at his wife's side, Katharine at the other side of the table; and then Dot, who seemed in her old high spirits this evening, began to pour out tea and talk for everybody. "It was so good of you to come to us the first day of your return, Kate. Aunt Arabella will be jealous. Of course you don't mean to return till late?" Katharine answered that she must be home at a little past six. Mr. Hilliard was to call for her at half-past five at latest, and she was afraid it was that already. "I am sure I hope papa won't forget all about it," she added. "Poor mamma would never forgive my being absent from dinner to-day." "Oh, if Uncle Frank doesn't come, and you really must go, Steven will walk with you," said Dot. "Won't you, Steven, when tea is over?" "No, indeed!" cried Katharine, before he could answer. "I would not think of taking Mr. Law-- of taking Steven out. If papa does not come, I shall just wait patiently till they send for me. You need not be in such a hurry to get rid of me, Dot." She laughed a little as she said this, and Steven looked steadily at her once more. The laugh that had once been so pleasant to listen to in tis rippling, girlish frankness, seemed to have lost more STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 917 of its youth than ever her face had lost. What was amiss with her? Was her engagement going wrong? Had she failed in subjugating a sufficient number of slaves of late? or--but he hated himself for the thought--was she acting a part with him still? "If his spirit had suffered, it has not affected him much outwardly," thought Katharine, taking a glance at Steven's bronzed, healthy face, then at the great slice of brown bread and marmalade on his plate. "It's easy enough in poetry or novels to depict blighted heroes of six feet one, but when one comes to see them near, the picture loses its pathos!" With so much justice do men and women judge each other in the supreme moments of their lives. The conversation flagged somewhat at first, not because Dot was at a loss for words, but because Katharine shrank in Steven's presence from discussing satin, stitch, and fashions still. At length it came round to Brighton, and Dora began to ask about the people who were spending the season there. Katharine ran through a string of names, glad to have found so thoroughly neutral a subject; finally, forgetting what she was about, spoke of Mr. Clarendon Whyte. In a moment Dot's color changed. "Was--was his wife with him?" she asked, in a low voice, and becoming intensely occupied with her teacup. "His wife! Oh, that was all a false report," said Katharine. "Arabella told us what she heard, but there was not, it seems, a word of real truth in it." A curious look came across Dora's face. "And did you, or rather dud Mrs. Dering see as much of Mr. Whyte as you used in town?" "I believe he used to come to the house a good deal," answered Katharine; "but I saw very little of him. You know of old how much Mr. Whyte and I cared for each other. "He is still laquais de place," said Katharine. "With this difference, that the General now accepts his attentions. It is a great sight to see poor Mr. Whyte's face when he is left alone with General Dering after dinner." "If the wine was good Clarendon Whyte would be contented," remarked Dot, with a little curl of the lip, "The laborer is worthy of his hire. Steven, dearest, cut me a slice of bread and butter." Much to Katharine's relief, her step-father made his appearance shortly after six o'clock. Mr. Hilliard, who never saw a yard further in the spirit than his eyes showed him materially, came into the parlor, his kind face beaming with smiles. "We shall see more of you now, Mrs. Dora, I hope," he said, patting Mrs. Lawrence's small shoulder, as they were leaving. "Mind, you must consider the Dene just as much your home as ever, and you too, Lawrence. Come to us as you used in the days when you and Dot had not begun to quarrel." Katharine turned away her head. Dot, not in the slightest918 STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. degree discountenanced, began to laugh. "We never quarrel now, do we Steven? and we shall always, always be glad to come to the Dene, Uncle Frank. I haven't seen Aunt Arabella for an age." "Well, then, come and see her to-morrow, and, by-the-by, Lawrence," added the Squire, turning to Steven, "if you have nothing particular to do, I wish you would run over in the morning and try this new Irish horse of mine. Kate is bent to ride him to the meet next Wednesday and I should be glad to see you put him at a fence or two first. You can come over any time of the day you like, Dora, my dear, and stop to dinner, both of you." Dot accepted without giving Steven time to speak; and almost before Mr. Hilliard and Katharine had left the house, was busying herself in thinking over her apparel for the next day. "And does not Kate look ill, Steven?" she cried, running out to her husband, as he stood lighting his pipe in the porch. "I never thought Kate would lose her looks so soon. Her wedding day is fixed, you know, and Katharine says she will be married in a bonnet, and have no party at all. Did you ever hear of such a thing?" Steven was silent. His wife's remarks seldom seemed to him to require any specific answer; besides, he was really occupied at this moment, in getting his meerschaum to light--a much graver interest to a man of sense than hearing about young ladies' love affairs or wedding dresses. "It seems quite good to have Kate back," went on Dot. There will be some one to speak to, some one to take pity on us a little of an evening now. Oh dear, out again?" This as Steven went inside the passage and took up his hat. "Now, what can there be for you to do at this time of night?" "There are the horses to look to, and the cows to fodder," Steven answered. Both the lads have got a holiday to-night." "As usual," said his wife, "I believe you give them holidays so often, simply that you may have more work to do yourself! How long will you be there?" "I shall be back in half an hour, my love," said Steven, stooping and pressing his lips on her forehead, with the cold gentleness which already had become a habit (in love nothing is habitual) to him. "Just as long as it will take me to finish my pipe." Long afterward Dora could see the red glow of Steven's pipe moving to and fro--"like the unquiet ghost that he is!" And an expression, the reverse of tender, rose into her eyes as she stood and watched there. "Dot and her husband seemed to get on together admirably," said Mr. Hilliard, as he was trotting home in excellent spirits, and with an excellent appetite for his dinner, at Katharine's side. "Admirably. You may take some credit to yourself for your success in match-making, after all, Kate!" DEMOCRACY. --- AFTER the rest is said--after many time-honored and really true things for subordination, experience, rights of property, etc., have been listened to, and acquiesced in--after the valuable and well-settled statement of our duties and relations in society is thoroughly conned over and exhausted--it remains to bring forward and modify everything else, divine in his own right, and a woman in hers, sole and untouchable by any canons of religion, politics, or what is called modesty or art. The radiation of this truth, practically a modern one, is the history and key of the most significant doings of our immediately preceding three centuries, and has been the political genesis and life of America. Advancing visibly, it still more advances invisibly. Underneath the fluctuations of the expressions of society, as well as the movements of the politics of the leading nations, we see steadily pressing ahead, and strengthening itself, even in the midst of immense tendencies toward aggregation, this image of completeness in separatism, of individual personal dignity, of a single person, either male or female, characterized in the main, not from extrinsic acquirements or position, but in the pride of himself of herself alone; and, as an eventual conclusion and summing-up, the simple, but tremendous and revolutionary, idea that the last, best dependence is to be upon Humanity itself, and its own inherent, normal, full-grown qualities, without any superstitious support whatever. The purpose of Democracy--supplanting old belief in the necessary absoluteness of established dynastic rulership, temporal, ecclesiastical, and scholastic, as furnishing the only security against chaos, crime, and ignorance--is, through many transmigrations, and amid endless ridicules, arguments, and ostensible failures, to illustrate, at all hazards, this doctrine of the sovereignty and sacredness of the individual, coequal with the balance-doctrine that man, properly trained, may and must become a law, and series of laws, unto himself, surrounding and providing for, not only his own personal control, but all his relations to other individuals, and to the State; and that, while other theories, as in the past histories of nations, have proved wise enough, and indispensable perhaps for their conditions, this, as matters now stand in our civilized world, is the only Scheme worth working form, as warranting results like those of Nature's laws, reliable, when once established, to carry on themselves.920 DEMOCRACY. With such for outset, and a silent, momentary prayer that we may be enabled to tell what is worthy the faith within us, we follow on. Leaving unsaid much that should properly prepare the way for the treatment of this many-sided matter of Democracy - leaving the whole history and consideration of the Feudal Plan and its products, embodying Humanity, its politics and civilization, through the retrospect of past time (which Plan and productions, indeed, make up all of the past, and a major part of the present) - leaving unanswered, at least by any specific and local answer, many a well-wrought argument and instance, and many a conscientious declamatory cry and warning - as, very lately, from an eminent and venerable person abroad - things, problems, full of doubt, dread, suspense, (not new to me, but old occupiers of many an anxious hour in city's din, or night's silence), we still may give a paragraph or so, whose drift is opportune. Time alone can finally answer these things. But as a substitute in passing let us, even if fragmentarily, throw forth a thought or two - a short direct or indirect suggestion of the premises of the theory, that other Plan, in the new spirit, under the new forms, started here in our America. As to the political section of Democracy, which introduces and breaks ground for further and vaster sections, few probably are the minds, even in these republican States, that fully comprehend the aptness of that phrase, "THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE," which we inherit from the lips of Abraham Lincoln; a formula whose verbal shape is homely wit, but whose scope includes both the totality and all minutiae of the lesson. The People! Like our huge earth itself, which, to ordinary scansion, is full of vulgar contradictions and offence, Man, viewed in the lumb, displeases, and is a constant puzzle and affront to the merely educated classes. The rare, cosmical, artist-mind, lit with the Infinite, alone confronts his manifold and oceanic qualities; but taste, intelligence and culture (so-called), have been against the masses, and remain so. there is plenty of glamour about the most damnable crimes and hoggish meannesses, special and general, of the Feudal and dynastic world, with its personnel of lords and queens and courts, so well-dressed and so handsome. But the People are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins are gaunt and ill-bred. Literature has never recognized the People, and, whatever may be said, does not to-day. Speaking generally, the tendencies of literature, as pursued, are to make mostly critical and querulous men. It seems as if, so far, there were some natural repugnance between a literary and professional life, and the rude spirit of the Democracies. There is, in later literature, a treatment of benevolance, DEMOCRACY. 921 a charity business, rife enough; but I know nothing more rare, even in this country, than a fit scientific estimate and reverent appreciation of the People - of their measureless wealth of latent power and capacity, their vast, artistic contrasts of lights and shades - and in America, their entire reliability in emergencies, and a certain breadth of historic grandeur, of peace or war, surpassing all the vaunted samples of the personality of book-heroes, in all the records of the world. The movements of the late war, and their results, to any sense that studies well and comprehends them, show that Popular Democracy practically justifies itself beyond the proudest claims and wildest hopes of its enthusiasts. Probably no future age can know, as we well know, how the gist of this fiercest and most resolute of the world's warlike contentions resided exclusively in the unnamed, unknown rank and file; and how the brunt of its labor of death was, to all essential purposes, Volunteered. The People, of their own choice, fighting, dying for their own idea, insolently attacked by the Secession-Slave-Power, and its very existence imperilled. Descending to detail, entering any of the armies, and mixing with the private soldiers, we see and have seen august spectacles. We have seen the alacrity of which the American-born populace, the peaceablest and most good-natured race in the world, and the most personally independent and intelligent, and the least fitted to submit to the irksomeness and exasperation of regimental discipline, sprang, at the first tap of the drum, to arms - not for gain, nor even glory, nor to repel invasion - but for an emblem, a mere abstraction - for the life, the safety of the Flag. We have seen the unequalled docility and obedience of these soldiers. We have seen them tried long and long by hopelessness, mismanagement, and by defeat; have seen the incredible slaughter toward or through which the armies (as at first Fredericksburg, and afterward at the Wilderness), still unhesitatingly obeyed orders to advance. We have seen them in trench, or crouching behind breastwork, or tramping in deep mud, or amid pouring rain or snow, or under forced marches in hottest Summer (as on the road to get to Gettysburg),vast suffocating swarms, division, corps, with every single man so grimed and black with sweat and dust, his own mother would not have known him; his clothes all dirty, stained and torn, with sour, accumulated sweat for perfume, many a comrade, perhaps a brother, sun-struck, staggering out, dying, by the roadside, of exhaustion- yet the great bulk bearing steadily on, cherry enough, hollow-bellied from hunger, but sinewy with unconquerable resolution. We have seen this race proved by wholesale by drearier, yet more fearful tests - the wound, the amputation, the shattered face or limb, the slow, hot fever, long, impatient anchorage in bed, and all the forms of maiming, operation and disease. Alas! America have922 DEMOCRACY. we seen, through only in her early youth, already to hospital brought. There have we watched these soldiers, many of them only boys in years - marked their decorum, their religious nature and fortitude, and their sweet affection. Wholesale, truly! For me at the front, and through the camps, in countless tents, stood the regimental, brigade and division hospitals; while everywhere amid the land, in or near cities, rose clusters of huge, whitewashed, crowded, wooden barracks, (Washington City alone, at one period, containing in her Army hospitals of this kind, 50,000 wounded and sick men) - and there ruled Agony with bitter scourge, yet seldom brought a cry; and there stalked Death by day and night along the narrow aisles between the rows of cots, or by the blankets on the ground, and touched lightly many a poor sufferer, often with blessed, welcome touch. I know not whether I shall be understood, but I realize that it is finally from what I learned in such scenes that I am not penning this article. One night in the gloomiest period of the war, in the Patent Office Hospital, as I stood by the bedside of a Pennsylvania soldier, who lay, conscious of quick approaching death, yet perfectly calm, and with noble, spiritual manner, the veteran surgeon, Dr. Stone (Horatio Stone, the sculptor), turning aside, said to me that though he had witnessed many, many deaths of soldiers, and had been a worker at Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, etc., he had not seen yet the first case of many or boy that met the approach of dissolution with cowardly qualms or terror. My own observation fully bears out the remark. What have we here, if not, towering above all talk and argument, the plentifully-supplied, last-needed proof of Democracy, in its personalities? Grand, common stock! to me the accomplished and convincing growth, prophetic of the future; proof undeniable to sharpest sense, of perfect beauty, tenderness and pluck, that never Feudal lord, nor Greek nor Roman breed, yet rivalled. let no tongue ever speak in disparagement of the American races, North or South, to one who has been through the war in the great Army hospitals. - Meantime, Humanity (for we will not shirk anything) has always, in every department, been full of perverse maleficence, and is so yet. In downcast hours the Soul thinks it always will be - but soon recovers from such sickly moods. I, as Democrat, see clearly enough (none more clearly), the crude, defective streaks in all the strata of the common people; the specimens and vast collections of the ignorant, the credulous, the unfit and uncouth, the incapable and the very low and poor. The eminent person, in his conscientious cry just mentioned, sneeringly asks whether we expect to elevate and improve politics by absorbing such morbid collectIons and qualities therein. The point is a formidable one, and there will DEMOCRACY. 923 doubtless always be numbers of solid citizens who will never get over it. Our answer is general, and is involved in the scope and letter of this article. We believe the object of political and all other government (having, of course, provided for the police, the safety of life, property, and the basic common and civil law, always first in order) to be, among the rest, not merely to rule, to repress disorder, etc., but to develop, to open up to cultivation, to encourage the possibilities of all beneficent and many outcroppage, and of that aspiration for independence, and the pride and self-respect latent in all characters. (Or, if there be exceptions, we cannot, fixing our eyes on them alone, make theirs the rule for all. ) The mission of government, henceforth, in civilized lands, is not authority alone, not even of law, nor by that favorite standard of the eminent writer, the rule of the best men, the born heroes and captains of the race (as if such ever, or one time out of a hundred, got into the big places, elective or dynastic!) - but, higher than the highest arbitrary rule, to train communities through all their grades, beginning with individuals and ending there again, to rule themselves. What Christ appeared for the moral-spiritual field for Humankind, namely, that in respect to the absolute Soul, there is in the possession of such by each single individual, something so transcendent, so incapable of gradations (like life), that, to that extent, it places all beings on a common level, utterly regardless of the distinctions of intellect, station, or any height or lowliness whatever- is tallied in the manner, in this field, by Democracy's rule that men, the Nation, as a common aggregate of living identities, affording in each a separate and complete subject for freedom, worldly thrift and happiness, and for a fair chance for growth, and for protection, in citizenship, etc., must, to the political extent of the suffrage or vote, if no further, be placed, in each and in the whole, on one broad, primary, universal, common platform. The purpose is not altogether direct; perhaps it is more indirect. To be a voter with the rest is not so much; and this, like every institute, will have its imperfections. But to become an enfranchised man, and now to stand and start without humiliation, and equal with the rest; to commence, or have the road cleared to commence, the grand experiment of development, whose end, perhaps requiring several generations, may be the forming of a full-grown manly or womanly Personality - that is something. To ballast the state is also secured, and in our times is to be secured, in no other way. We do not (at any rate I do not) put it either so much on the ground that the People, the masses, even the best of them are, in their latent or exhibited qualities, essentially sensible and good - nor on the ground of their rights; but that, good or bad, rights or no rights, the Democratic formula is the only safe and preservative924 DEMOCRACY. one for coming times. We endow the masses with the suffrage for their own sake, no doubt; then, still more, from another point of view, the community's sake. Leaving the rest to the sentimentalists, we present Freedom as sufficient in its scientific aspects, cold as ice, reasoning, clear and passionless as crystal. Democracy too is law, and of the strictest, amplest kind. Many suppose (and often in its own ranks the error) that it means a throwing aside of law, and running riot. But, briefly, it is the superior law, not alone that of physical force, the body, which, adding to, it supersedes with that of the spirit. Law is the unshakable order of the universe forever; and the law over all, and law of laws, is the last of successions; that of the superior law, in time, gradually supplanting and overwhelming the inferior one. (While, for myself, I would cheerfully agree -first covenanting that the formative tendencies shall be administered in favor, or, at least not against it, and that this reservation be closely construed - that until the individual or community show due signs, or be so minor and fractional as not to endanger the State, the condition of tutelage may continue, and self-government must abide its time.) - Nor is the esthetic point, always an important one, without fascination for highest aiming souls. The common ambition strains for common elevations, to become some privileged exclusive. The master sees greatness and health in being part of the mass. Nothing will do as well as common ground. Would you have in yourself the diving, vast general law? Then merge yourself in it. And, topping Democracy, this most alluring record, that is alone can bind, and ever seeks to bind, all nations, all men, of however various and distant lands, into a brotherhood, a family. It is the old, yet ever-modern dream of Earth, out of her eldest and her youngest, her fond philosophers and poets. Not this half only, this Individualism, which isolates. There is another half, which is Adhesiveness or Love, that fuses, ties and aggregates, making the races comrades, and fraternizing all. Both are to be vitalized by Religion (sole worthiest elevator of man or State) breathing into the proud, material tissues, the breath of life. For at the core of Democracy, finally, is the Religious element. All the REligions, old and new, are there. Nor may the Scheme step forth, clothed in resplendent beauty and command, till these, bearing the best, the latest fruit, the Spiritual, the aspirational, shall fully appear. - Portions of our pages we feel to indite with reference toward Europe more than our own land, and thus, perhaps not absolutely needed for the home reader. But the whole question hangs together, and fastens and links all peoples. The Liberalist of to-do has this advantage over antique or medieval times, that his doctrine seeks both to universalize as well as individualize. The great word Solidarity has arisen. DEMOCRACY. 925 How, then (for in that shape forebodes the current deluge ) - how shall we, good-class folk, meet the rolling, mountainous surges of "swarmery" that already beat upon and threaten to overwhelm us? What disposal, short of wholesale throat-cutting and extermination (which seems not without its advantages), offers, for the countless herds of "hoofs and hobnails," that will somehow, and so perversely get themselves born, and grow up to annoy and vex us? What under heaven is to become of "nigger Cushee," that imbruted and lazy being - now, worst of all, preposterously free? etc. Never before such a yawning gulf; never such danger as now from incarnated Democracy advancing, with the laboring classes at its back. Woe the day; woe the doings, the prospects thereof! England, or any respectable land, giving the least audience to these "servants of the mud gods," or utterly infatuate, extending to them the suffrage, takes swift passage therewith, bound for the infernal pit. Ring the alarum bell! Put the flags at half mast! Or, rather, let each man spring for the nearest loose spar or plank. The ship is going down! Be not so moved, not to say distraught, my venerable friend. Spare those spasms of dread and disgust. England, after her much- widened suffrage, as she did before, will still undergo troubles and tribulations, without doubt; but they will be as nothing to what (in the judgment of all heads not quite careened and addled), would certainly follow the spirit, carried out in any modern nation, these days, of your appeal or diatribe. neither by berating them, nor twitting them with their low condition of ignorance and misery, nor by leaving them as they are, nor by turning the screws still tighter, nor by taking even the most favorable chances for "the noble Few" to come round with relief, will the demon of that "unanimous vulgar" (paying very heavy taxes) be pacified and made harmless any more. Strangely enough, about the only way to really lay the fiend appears to be this very way - the theme of these your ravings. A sort of fate and antique Nemesis, of the highest old Greek tragedy sort, is in it (as in our own Play, or affair, rapidly played of late here in the South, through all the acts - indeed a regular, very wondrous Eschuylean piece - to that old part First, that bound and chained unkillable Prometheus, now, after twenty-three hundred years, very grandly and epico-dramatically supplementing and fully supplying the lost, or never before composed, Second and Third parts). Your noble, hereditary, Anglo-Saxon-Norman institutions (still here so loudly championed and battled for in your argument) having been, through some seven or eight centuries, thriftily engaged in cooking up this mess, have now get to eat it. The only course eligible, it is plain, is to plumply confront, embrace, absorb, swallow (O, big and bitter pill!) the entire British "swarmery," demon, "loud roughs" and all. These926 DEMOCRACY. ungrateful men, nor satisfied with the poor-house for their old age, and the charity-school for their infants, evidently mean business- may-be of bloody kind. By all odds, my friend, the thing to do is to make a flank movement, surround them, disarm them, give them their first degree, incorporate them in the State as voters, and then- wait for the next emergency. Nor may I permit myself to dismiss the utterance of their eminent person without pronouncing its laboriously-earned and fully-deserved credit for about the highest eminence attained yet, in a certain direction, of any linguistic product, written or spoken, to me known. I have had occasion in my past life (being born, as it were, with propensities, from my earliest years, to attend popular American speech-gatherings, conventions, nominations, camp-meetings, and the like, and also as a reader of newspapers, foreign and domestic) - I therefore know that trial to one's ears and brains from divers creatures, alluded to by sample, and well-hetchelled in this diatribe, crow-cawing the words Liberty, loyalty, human rights, constitutions, etc. I, too, have heard the ceaseless braying, screaming blatancy (on behalf of my own side), making noisiest threats and clatter stand for sense. But I must not affirm that such a comic-painful hullabaloo and vituperative cat-squalling as this about "the Niagara leap," "swarmery," "Orsonism," etc. (meaning, in point, as I make out, simply extending, to full-grown British working-folk, farmers, mechanics, clerks, and so on- the "industrial aristocracy," indeed, there named - the privilege of the ballot, or vote, deciding, by popular majorities, who shall be designated to sit in one of the two Houses of Parliament, if it mean anything), I never yet encountered; no, not even in extremest hour of midnight, in whooping Tennessee revival, or Bedlam let loose in crowded, colored Carolina bush-meeting. But to proceed, and closer to our text. The curse and canker of Nations politically has been - or, at any rate, will be, as things have come to exist in our day - the having of certain portions of the people set off from the rest by a line drawn - they not privileged as others, but degraded, humiliated, made of no account. We repeat it, the question is, finally, one of Science - the science of the present and the future. Much quackery teems, of course, yet does not really affect the orbic quality of the matter. To work in, if we may so term it, and justify God, his divine aggregate, the People (or, the veritable horned and fluke-tailed Devil, his aggregate, then, since you, so convulsively insist upon it, O, eminence!) - this, without doubt, is what Democracy is for; and this is what our America means, and is doing - may I not say, has done? if not, she means nothing more, and does nothing more than any other land. And as, by virtue of its cosmical, antiseptic power, Nature's stomach is fully strong enough not only to DEMOCRACY. 927 digest the morbific matter always presented, not to be turned aside, and perhaps, indeed, intuitively gravitating thither - but even to change such contributions into nutriment for highest use and life - so American Democracy's. That is the lesson we, these days, send over to European lands by every western breeze. And, truly, whatever may be said in the way of abstract argument, for or against the theory of wider democratizing of institutions in any civilized country, much trouble might well be saved to those European lands by recognizing this palpable fact (for a palpable fact it is), that some form of such democratizing is about the only resource now left. That, or chronic dissatisfaction continued, mutterings which grow annually louder and louder, till, in due course, and pretty swiftly in most cases, the inevitable crisis, crash, dynastic ruin. Anything worthy to be called statesmanship in the Old World, I should say, among the advanced students, adepts, or men of any brains, does not debate to-day whether to hold on, attempting to lean back and monarchize, or to look forward and democratize. The difficulties of the transfer may be fearful; perhaps none here in our America can truly know them. I, for one, fully acknowledge them, and sympathize deeply. But there is Time, and must be Faith; and Opportunities, though gradual and slow, will everywhere be born. and beaming like a star, to any and to all, whatever else may for a while be quenched, shines not the eternal signal in the West? - There is (turning home again) a thought, or fact, I must not forget - subtle and vast, dear to America, twin-sister of its Democracy- so ligatured indeed to it, that either's death, if not the other's also, would make that other live out life, dragging a corpse, a loathsome, horrid tag and burden forever at its feet. What the idea of Messiah was to the ancient race of Israel, through storm and calm, through public glory and their name's humiliation, tenacious, refusing to be argued with, shedding all shafts of ridicule and disbelief, undestroyed by captivities, battles deaths - for neither the scalding blood of war, nor the rotted ichor of peace could ever wash it out, nor has yet - a great Idea, bedded in Judah's heart - source of the loftiest Poetry the world yet knows - continuing on the same, though all else varies - the spinal thread of the incredible romance of that people's career along five thousand years - so runs this thought, this fact, amid our own land's race and history. It is the thought of Oneness, averaging, including all; the Identity - the indissoluble Union of These States. - The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertness and fossilism making so large a part of human institutions. The latter will always take care of themselves. The former is to be treated928 DEMOCRACY. with indulgence, and even respect As circulation to air, so is agitation and a plentiful degree of speculative license to political and moral sanity. Indirectly, but surely, goodness, virtue, law (of the very best) follow Freedom. These, to Democracy, are what the keel is to the ship, or saltness to the ocean. The gravitation-hold of Liberalism will be a more universal ownership of property, general homesteads, general comfort - a vast, intertwining reticulation of wealth. No community furnished throughout with homes, and substantial, however moderale, incomes, commits suicide, or "shoots Niagara." As the human frame, or, indeed, any object in this manifold Universe, is best kept together by the simple miracle of its own cohesion, and the necessity and profit thereof, so a great and varied Nationality, occupying millions of square miles, were firmest held and knit by the principle of the safety and endurance of the aggregate of its middling property owners. So that, from another point of view, ungracious as it may sound, and a paradox after what we have been saying, Democracy looks with suspicious, ill-satisfied eye upon the very poor, and on the ignorant. She asks for men and women well-off, owners of houses and acres, and with cash in the bank - and with some cravings for literature, too; and must have them, and hastens to make them. Luckily, the seed is already well-sown, and has taken ineradicable root. - Huge and mighty are our Days, our republican lands - and most in their rapid shiftings, their changes, all in the interest of the Cause. As I write, the din of disputation rages around me. Aerid the temper of the parties, vital the pending questions. Congress convenes; the President sends his Message; Reconstruction is still in abeyance; the nominations and contest for the twenty-first Presidentiad draw close, with loudest thread and bustle. Of these, and all the like of these, the eventuations I know not; but well I know that behind them, and whatever their eventuations, the really vital things remain safe and certain, and all the needed work goes on. Time, with soon or later superciliousness, disposes of Presidents, Congressmen, party platforms, and such. Anon, it clears the stage of each and any moral shred that thinks itself so potent to its day; and at and after which (with precious, golden exceptions once or twice in a century), all that relates to sir potency is flung to moulder in a burial-vault, and no one bothers himself the least bit about it afterward. But the People ever remains, tendencies continue, and all the idiocratic transfers in unbroken chain go on. In a few years the dominion-heart of America will be far inland, toward the West. Our future National Capitol will not be where the present one is. I should say that certainly, in less than fifty years, it will migrate a thousand or two miles, will be re-founded, and every thing belonging DEMOCRACY. 929 to it made up on a different plan, original, far more superb. The main social, political spine-character of The States will probably run along the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and west and north of them including Canada. Those regions, with the group of powerful brothers toward the Pacific (destined to the mastership of that sea and its countless Paradises of islands), will compact and settle the traits of America, with all the old retained, but more expanded, grafted on newer, hardier, purely native stock. A giant growth, composite from the rest, getting their contribution, absorbing it to make it more illustrious. From the North, Intellect, the sun of things - also the idea of unswayable Justice, anchor amid the last, the wildest tempests. From the South, the living Soul, the animus of good and bad, haughtily admitting no demonstration but its own. While from the West itself comes solid Personality, with blood and brawn, and the deep quality of all-accepting fusion. Political Democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, supplies a training-school for making grand young men. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all. We try often, though we fall back often. A brave delight, fit for freedom's athletes, fills these arenas, and fully satisfies, out of the action in them, irrespective of success. Whatever we do not attain, we at any rate attain the experiences of the fight, the hardening of the strong campaign, and throb with currents of attempt at least. Time is ample. Let the victors come after us. Not for nothing does evil play its part among men. Vive, the attack - the perennial assault! Vive, the unpopular canse - the spirit that audaciously aims - the courage that dies not- the never-abandoned efforts, pursued the same amid opposing proofs and precedents. - Once, before the war, I too, was filled with doubt and gloom. A traveller, an acute and good man, had impressively said to me, that day - putting in form, indeed, my own observations: I have traveled much in the United States, and watched their politicians, and listened to the speeches of the candidates, and read the journals, and gone into the public houses, and heard the unguarded talk of men. and I have found your vaunted America honey-combed from top to toe with infidelism, even to itself and its own programme. I have marked the brazen hell-faces of secession and slavery gazing defiantly from all the windows and doorways. I have everywhere found, primarily, thieves and scalliwags arranging the nominations to offices, and sometimes filling the offices themselves. I have found the North just as full of bad stuff as the South. Of the holders of public office in the Nation, or in the States, or the municipalities, I have found that not one in a hundred has been chosen by any spontaneous selection of the outsiders, the people, but all have been nominated and put through by little or large930 DEMOCRACY. caucuses of the politicians, and have got in by electioneering, not desert. I have noticed how the millions of sturdy farmers and mechanics are thus the helpless supple-jacks of comparatively few politicians. And I have noticed more and more, the alarming spectacle of parties usurping the Government, and openly and shamelessly wielding it for party purposes. Sad, serious, deep truths. Yet are there other, still deeper, amply confronting, dominating truths. Over those politicians, and over all their insolence and wiles, and over the powerfulest parties, looms a Power, too sluggish may-be, but ever holding decisions and decrees in hand, ready, with stern process to execute them as soon as plainly needed, and at times, indeed summarily crushing to atoms the mightiest parties, even in the hour of their pride. Far different are the amounts of these things from what, at first sight, they appear. Though it is no doubt important who is elected President of Governor, Mayor or Legislator, there are other, quieter contingencies, infinitely more important. Shames, etc., will always be the show, like ocean's scum; enough if waters deep and clear make up the rest. Enough, that while the piled embroidered sholly gaud and fraud spreads to the superficial eye, the hidden warp and weft are genuine, and will wear forever. Enough, in short, that the race, the land which could raise such as the late rebellion, could also put it down. The average man of a land at last only is important. He, in these States, remains immortal owner and boss, deriving good uses, somehow, out of any sort of servant in office, even the bases; because (certain universal requisites, and their settled regularity and protection, being first secured), a Nation like ours, in the formation state, trying continually new experiments, choosing new delegations, is not served by the best men only, but sometimes more by those that provoke it - by the combats they arouse. Thus national rage, fury, discussion etc., sublimer than content. Thus, also, the warning signals, invaluble for the times. What is more dramatic than the spectacle we have seen repeated, and doubtless long shall see - the popular judgment taking the successful candidates on trial in the offices - standing off, as it were, and observing them and their doings for a while, and always giving, finally, the fit, exactly due reward. - When I pass to and fro, different latitudes, different seasons, beholding the crowds of the great cities, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, new Orleans, Baltimore - when I mix with these interminable swarms of alert, turbulent, good-natured, independent citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons - at the the idea of this mass of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a singular awe falls upon me. I feel, with dejection and amazement, that among our geniuses and talented DEMOCRACY. 931 writers or speakers, few or none have yet really spoken to this people, or absorbed the central spirit and the idiosyncrasies which are theirs, and which, thus, in highest ranges, so far remain entirely uncelebrated, unexpressed. Dominion strong is the body's; dominion stronger is the mind's. What has filled, and fills to-day our intellect, our fancy, furnishing the standards therein, is yet foreign. The great poems, Shakespeare included, are poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood of Democracy. The models of our literature, as we get it from other lands, ultramarine, have had their birth originally in courts, and basked and grown in castle sunshine; all smells of princes' favors. For esthetic Europe is yet exclusively feudal. The literature of These States, a new projection, when it comes, must be the born outcrop, through all rich and luxuriant forms, but stern and exclusive, of the sole Idea of The States, belonging here alone. Of course, of workers of a certain sort, we have already plenty, contributing after their kind; many elegant, many learned, all complacent. But, touched by the National test, they wither to ashes. I say I have not seen one single writer, artis, lecturer, or what not, that has confronted the voiceless but ever erect and active, pervading, underlying will and typic Aspiration of the land, in a spirit kindred to itself. Do you call those geneel little creatures American poets? Do you term that perpetual, pistareen, pasteboard work, American art, American opera, dra, taste, verse? I think I hear, echoed as from some mountain-top afar in the West, the scornful laugh of the Genius of These States. - Democracy, in silence, biding its time, ponders its own ideals, not of men only, but of women. The idea of the women of America (extricated from this daze, this fossil and unhealthy air which hands about the word, Lady), developed, raised to become the robust equals, workers, and even practical and political deciders with the men - greater than man, we may admit, through their diving maternity, always their towering, emblematical attribute - but great, at any rate, as man, in all departments; or, rather, capable of being so, soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do amid real independent, stormy life. - Then, as toward finale (and, in that, overarching the true scholar's lesson), we have to say there can be no complete or epical presentation of Democracy, or any thing like it, at this day, because its doctrines will only be effectually incarnated in any one branch, when, in all, their spirit is at the root and centre. How much is still to be disentangled, freed! How long it takes to make this world see that it is, in itself, the final authority and reliance! Did you, too, suppose Democracy was only for elections, for932 DEMOCRACY. politics, and for a party name? I say Democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs--Democracy in all public and private life, and in the Army and Navy. I have intimated that, as a paramount scheme, it has yet few or no full realizers and believers. I do not see, either that it owes any serious thanks to noted propagandists or champions, or has been essentially helped, though often harmed, by them. It has been and is carried on by all the moral forces, and by trade, finance, machinery, intercommunications, etc., and can no more be stopped than the tides, or the earth in its orbit. Doubtless, also, it resides, crude and latent, well down in the hearts of the fair average of the American-born people, mainly in the agricultural regions. But it is not yet, there or anywhere, the fully-received, the fervid, the absolute faith. I submit, therefore, that the fruition of Democracy, on aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in the future. As, under any profound and comprehensive view of the gorgeous-composite Feudal world, we see in it, through the long ages and cycles of ages, the results of a deep, integral, human and divine principle, or fountain, from which issued laws, ecclesia, manners, institutes, costumes, personalities, poems (hitherto unequalled), faithfully partaking of their source, and indeed only arising either to betoken it, or to furnish parts of that varied-flowing display, whose centre was one and absolute--so, long ages hence, shall the due historian or critic make at least an equal retrospect, an equal History for the Democratic principle. It, too, must be adorned, credited with its results; then, when it, with imperial power, through amplest time, has dominated mankind--has been the source and test of all the moral, esthetic, social, political, and religious expressions and institutes of the civilized world--has begotten them in spirit and in form, and carried them to its own unprecedented heights--has had monastics and ascetics, more numerous, more devout than the monks and priests of all previous creeds--has swayed the ages with a breadth and rectitude tallying Nature's own--has fashioned, systematized, and triumphantly finished and carried out, in its own interest, and with unparalleled success, a New Earth and a New Man. --Thus we presume to write, as it were, upon things that exist not, and travel by maps yet unmade, and a blank. But the throes of birth are upon us; and we have something of this advantage in seasons of strong formations, doubts, suspense--for then the afflatus of such themes haply may fall upon us, more or less; and then, hot from surrounding revolution, our speech, though without polished coherence, and a failure by the standard called criticism, comes forth, real at least, as the lightnings. And may-be we, these days, have, too, our own reward (for there OUR GOLDEN WEDDING. 933 are yet some, in all lands, worthy to be so encouraged.) Though not for us the joy of entering at the last the conquered city -- nor ours the chance ever to see with our own eyes the peerless power and splendid eclat of the Democratic principle, arrived at meridian, filling the world with effulgence and majesty far beyond those of past history's kings, or all dynastic sway; there is yet, to whoever is eligible among us, the prophetic vision, the joy of being tossed in the brave turmoil of these times -- the promulgation and the path, obedient, lowly reverent to the voice, the gesture of the god, or holy ghost, which others seen not, hear not -- with the proud consciousness that amid whatever clouds, seductions, or heart-wearying postponements, we have never deserted, never despaired, never abandoned the Faith. WALT WHITMAN. OUR GOLDEN WEDDING ON THE ISLAND. A Love-Tale happened long ago, But not much more than fifty years, Like all such stories, high or low, Mingled of hopes and joys and tears. Those hopes Heaven sweetly did fulfill-- Look round on our ancestral isle, Behold the blossoms of our hill And let the children's children smile! The joys have been--and joy should be, And thanks in every heart to-night! You generations--one, two, three, Call you not this a gladsome sight? And other tears may be to come, When He who gave shall take away; But rather let our song be dumb Than dwell upon the distant day. The present is the hour for us-- Love long be with you, blessed pair! Rise, David Heard! victorious, Once more thy BETSEY wed and wear! T. W. PARSONS. 59 THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. --------- THE drunken drama has two branches. One branch is illus-trated by the actor who represents drunkenness on the stage, as he might represent thievery, murder, or any other wickedness. The other branch is illustrated by the actor who gets drunk. Not infrequently the two are combined, and Toodles on the stage is also Toodles in private. He may move us to laughter in the theatre, but we may be assured there will be others who he will move to tears out of it. It was formerly more common than it is now, to endeavor to make the drama subservient to the cause of temperance: such as a means of warning young men. Now, the serious drunkard has gone out of fashion, and has place in the drama is occupied by such amusing sots as Toodles and Eccles. We seldom now see the moral phrase of the drunken drama on the stage is any of our first-class theaters. When the play of The Drunkard( italicized) was first produced, it created a marked sensation. Its chief impersonator, a delicate young man of twenty-five, named Goodall died of excessive drinking, and the piece expired with its great representative. Goodall was an extra-ordinary example of the preacher who fails to practice his own pre-cepts. There may have been those who profited by his "fearful example," as tightly rendered to crowded houses-I have heard some very impressive stories to that effect, but never gave them much credit-but the actor himself was not warned. The persona-tion was no mere mimicry with Goodall. He himself had felt the anguish he so powerfully portrayed. But the bitterest comment on the influence of such representations remains in the fact that although this unhappy young man reformed on the stage every night during a period of three years, he never extended his reformation into private's life. They call this sort of play "the moral drama." The term is a ridiculous one, and one born of cant. Aside from its absurdity, it is an insult to every other class of dramatic production, and I can only wonder that any self-respecting manager should ever have adopted it. It implies that the drama proper is immortal. That to assume. I have a sincere respect for genuine convictions, and a sincere contempt for narrow prejudice. It is to this prejudice that the original inventor of the "moral drama" pandered-and by doing so, tacitly admitted that such prejudices were well founded. THE DRUNKEN DRAMA 935 It is rather extraordinary, to one who looks for candor in its op-ponents, that they should take the abuses of the stage as a basis on which to form a judgment of the stage itself. I do not now recall any other branch of art that is thus ill-treated by them. Not long ago, the novel was the sharer of the stage in this sort of denunciation-tion, but it is so no longer. A distinction is made between the good and the bad, not alone among novels, but in novels; and works which twenty years ago would have been eyed askance by many good people, are now permitted to lie upon their family tables, and are read around the evening lamp. This is not because the novels have changed, but because the sentiment of the religious world has changed. Our mothers can remember when Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers were not deemed fit to be read in strictly guarded circles; to-day, the same circles-that is, the same re-ligious convictions-do not taboo even the works of the dreadful Mr.Thackeray, who has done for morality and honor so splendid a work. There are abuses, vices, wickednesses connected with the stage, but the stage is not an abuse, a vice, nor a wickedness. Its evils I am going to labor all my life, in my humble way, to try and right. But I am at the same time going to continue a defender of the drama, with voice and pen, always and everywhere. There has been a deal of stupid talk in this world about the "warning influence" of plays which hold the mirror up to vice. This also is born of cant. We have heard of thievishly-inclined apprentices being "warned" from putting their fingers into their employer's cash-box by witnessing the career of George Barn-well. We have been told of terrible creatures, who were ripe for murder, being so horror-stricken over the woes of Macbeth that they immediately put on a clean shirt and joined the church. All stuff. I contend that it is just here we may all look for the worst influence of the play-house; the "leg business" is trivial in com-parison with the "moral drama," so far as its bad influence upon auditors is concerned. These horrible representation of vice ought to be banished the stage: those people are wholly in error who believe their influence to be beneficial. The same people believe that the spectacle of a murderer murdered by the law's hand, dangling hideously between earth and sky at a rope's end, is a useful one to the spectators; and that the column-length printing of the records of crime in the newspapars in prurient detail, exert a moral influence. These things are horrible and pernicious in their influence. The stage should be swept of them. The influence of the stage on morality is a clear one, but the censors do not seem to know wherein it lies. Nobody goes to the theatre to be preached too. The prime object of the theatre is to936 THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. entertain, and it is for the purpose of being entertained that people go there. The first aim of even the "moral drama" is to entertain ; and if it fail in that, nobody will go to see it. But by making the amusement pure and beautiful in itself, the theatre insensibly exerts a good influence. It is not necessary to preach morality, but to exhibit amusing, refining and agreeable phases of life--real life--that we may not be disgusted with human nature. The dramatist who goes out of his way to inculcate a moral, does an unprofitable thing. It is the tone that runs through a play which renders it beneficial. It stirs to laughter or sympathetic tears ; it touches the chords of sweet emotions in the spectators. When it curdles their blood with horror, makes the shiver, it is as pernicious and hateful as when it directly panders to vice. These opinions are only the result of careful and thoughtful observation, not of any philosophic theory. I am neither philosopher nor moralist, but, like Mr. Emerson, I can "say what I see." I cannot prove myself right, in any logical and altogether crushing way. But, womanlike, I can ask a question, and I will. Who most love the so-called "moral drama" ? The Bowery boys. Who cheer the loudest at a melodramatic and high sounding moral "gag" from an actor's tongue ? The little rascals of the Old Bowery pit, who would pick your pocket without a scruple. "Ha-a-a, villun," roars the gallant young sailor in immaculate white trowsers and kid slippers, "I have unmasked ye. Begone, villun ! and know--aha--that he who would lie to his wife would not hesitate to rob a bank of millions !" And "hi! hi?" shout the dirty little gallery gods. They like it--it suits their ideas exactly--but be careful they do not get too near you when you are leaving theatre, or your pocket-book may change owners. Go to some profounder metaphysician than I am for an explanation of why this is so. But rest assured that it is so. If there be any exceptions to prove the rule, I hope you know of them ; I do not. But while the "moral" drunken drama is hurtful in an indirect and not easily explainable way, the representation of drunkenness in its comic aspect is hurtful in an equal, perhaps a greater, degree, and in a way that is quite comprehensible. Man is a monkey in his penchant for imitation, and he especially loves to imitate that which is funny. The boys at the circus go home and imitate the clown, mimic his antics, retail his jokes, and if they arouse a laugh thereby, are elated with their success. They mimic Toodles and Eccles in the same way. Men--who are but grown-up boys--are inspired by the same spirit. They get a great idea of the humorous aspect of drunkenness, and they do not shrink from exhibiting it in their own persons to a choice circle of their fellows. They get drunk over dinners at Delmonico's, and mock Toodles in a way that THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. 937 makes their companions, themselves a little drunk also, laugh uproariously. They go into bar-rooms, slap each other hilariously on the back, jam their hats on the back of their heads, and mock ol Eccles. Spectators and amateur performers are here under the influence of the same baneful thing--the idea that Eccles and Toodles are funny off the stage as well as on. And so they are ; and the drunkard off the stage sometimes provokes the spirit of imitation too, no doubt. There are all sorts of pernicious influences at work in the world ; I would keep them out of all literature, whether in novels or in plays. Of course the most deplorable branch of the drunken drama is that which is illustrated by the actor who gets drunk. The most vicious feature of this branch, strangely enough, is often presented by the audience. No theatre-goer can have failed to note the bad influence the audience sometimes exerts in its manner of treating the actor who is addicted to liquor in private life. His vice really seems in some mysterious way to make him a favorite. Instances of this are painfully abundant. An actor, now in the height of his popularity, who is known to be sadly intemperate, finds himself greeted by enthusiastic applause whenever he has occasion, in his assumed character, to allude to drinking in a humorous way. Eight or nine years ago, in a Western town, my sister was one night summoned to play in the Lady of Lyons. The house was all sold, a large and fashionable audience was gathered, and expectation was on tiptoe. Eight o'clock arrived ; the curtain remained down ; the audience became impatient. There was trouble behind the scenes. No Claude Melnotte was to be found. The actor above alluded to was cast for the part, but he had not come. "Where can he be ?" was anxiously asked by Pauline. "Oh, I know where to find him," replied the manager. "Johnny will be sure to be at the faro-table, and drunk." His words were verified. "Johnny" was at the faro-table--and drunk. By some subtle system of telegraphy the audience became aware of this fact, but, so far from being indignant at it, when the greatly-belated Johnny at length stepped on on the stage, his appearance was the signal for a burst of enthusiastic and approbatory yells, which changed into decided applause when Johnny thickly stumbled over the first speech of Bulwer's hero. Johnny has manfully sustained his reputation for faro-playing and drunkenness during the past ten years, and it was only the other night that I heard him enthusiastically sustained by applause when he announced that the wine-cap was a trinket with which he was quite at home--or words to that effect. Johnny is still young, handsome, graceful, and of such decided talent for dramatic art that he occasionally trenches on actual genius. It is very sad to see his leaning to drink, but it is even sadder to see how his audiences encourage him in it. 938 THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. Another example of this kind was furnished by a well-known actor who died recently in a distant State. He was the most charming Romeo I ever saw; and when he chose to vary, where so delightful a Mercutio as he? Frequently he addressed the audience when very drunk. I remember on one occasion, in Philadelphia, his coming down to the footlights and saying: "Ladies and gentleman, d'ye see that man? He ought t' be pardoned. I, being the Duke, ought t' pardon him, but our property-man is such a drunkard that hasn't put one speck of pardon on the table. If this speech had been hissed it might have been a rebuke strong enough to bring about the reformation of the unfortunate actor (for there was never a man so apprehensive of the displeasure of an audience), but, on the contrary, it seemed to afford universal amusement and gratification. Few of my readers are ignorant of the fact that the elder Booth, whose like we shall not see again, was often intoxicated while playing. Strangely enough, his artistic powers were as strong when he was in that state as when he was quite sober. Many aver that his sober Richard was a tame and puerile thing, compared to the noisy Gloster of perhaps a hundred cups. It seems, however, scarcely necessary to add that when in this state Booth's brain was no clearer than that of another man who is intoxicated; and though he managed to give his grand "points" with perhaps even greater force than when he was sober, he effectually ruined the play for all the other performers—and in the main, for the audience. When I was a little girl, Booth was once playing, in conjunction with my sister, in Memphis, and she sent me one night to deliver some message to him on the stage. The curtain had not yet risen, but I found Mr. Booth standing at the back of the stage, inside the tomb of the Capulets, for the nonce unoccupied by any defunct member of that illustrious house. I approached timidly and delivered my message, whereupon, starting up with the graceful spring of a tiger disturbed, he hissed out— Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! They bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! Any one who has seen Booth, and remembers the terrible intensity of his voice, the wonderful crescendo which he placed on the word gla-a-are! in this sentence, will not be surprised to learn that a weak, sickly little girl, as I was, should have toppled straight over in a dead swoon at hearing it so unexpectedly and unjustly addressed to herself, in the semi-darkness of the Capulet tomb. It is needless to say that the great tragedian was intoxicated. On this occasion, after I had been discovered, and a couch had been extemporized for me in my sister's dressing-room. I remember hearing THE DRUNKEN DRAMA 939 such peals on peals of applause for his acting that I lay there in an agonized fear that he would add further to my distresses by playing so well that the audience would tear the house down in their enthusiasm. The next time I saw Booth he was playing with Miss Davenport (Mrs. Lander). The piece was The Apostate, and on this occasion I formed one of the audience. The reader who is familiar with this play will remember where Alvarez gives Florinda to Hemeya, who, receiving her with applause, exclaims, "Who now shall part us?" At this moment on strode the terrible Pescara, and roared the one word, "I!" Booth was intoxicated again! And his whole bearing so reminded me of the previous occasion when he had given me a fright from which I had not yet fully recovered, that, forgetting decorum and everything else, I started up from my seat and rushed pell-mell out of the theatre. On several occasions I saw Edwin Booth, a tall, slender boy who seemed all eyes, standing behind the scenes intently watching his father's performances, and I remember wondering if the little boy's father ever frightened him as he had frightened me. Hissing in theatres is no longer practiced in this country, save in the rarest instances. There are other modes of expressing disapproval which are quite as effectual, perhaps, and it is not desirable that hissing should be resorted to, except in case of the gravest offence. Such offence, I think, is afforded by the actor who appears drunk on the stage. It is an insult to his audience, and the audience has a right to resent it as such. I doubt if there be an actor living who would not become speedily cured of this vice if the audience took that course with him. The cure might not extend to private life, it is true; but that, so far as the interests of art are concerned, is a secondary consideration. I know no reason why an actor's private vices should be taken in hand by the public, in any way that they would not be if he were not an actor. It is solely in the interests of art that I am writing now; and art requires that its devotees should not put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains. I wonder if there be any one among the censurers of the stage who will find in the drunkenness of actors another proof of the wickedness of the theatre? I wonder if it will be argued that this article is a concession to the prejudices of these people, and an argument ready-made for their use? Perhaps I ought not to wonder, but to take it for granted that such a course of reasoning will be adopted. Even more untenable positions than this are continually taken. In fact, the only ground the opponent of the theatre can walk on is found in the faults that are connected with it—faults which we all deplore, quite as much as do our censors. I admit940 THE DRUNKEN DRAMA. that some actors drink--ergo, "actors are a dreadful set of people." But do not some orators drink? I once saw a Fourth of July orator so tipsy that he could hardly stand straight while he mumbled his oration. I know of a celebrated lecturer and college professor who has a glass of liquor on the desk before him, and never lectures except in a condition of mild intoxication. Do you therefore pronounce oratory a wickedness, and orators a "dreadful set?" Do not literary men drink? I have heard, it seems to me, of Bohemians who were in that habit, who yet did not succeed in casting a stigma on all literature by their vice-- whose books are read in the purest circles, and noticed favorably in the most rigid of journals. Do not statesmen drink? the annuals of statesmanship present many dreadful examples of brilliant intellects besotted by liquor, and of mediocre men tipsy in high office. Do you condemn statesmanship therefore? Do not hod- carriers drink? Do you condemn hod-carrying therefore? If I could always as easily foresee the position the learned gentleman on the other side would take, I should be glad; but his positions are really so much more trivial than this, generally, that it is impossible to answer them at all. I claim for actors and actresses precisely what is claimed for men and women in every calling in life--that they shall be esteemed according to their merits as men and women. Their calling has nothing to do with this, in any sense; but if it had, I deny that it is, necessarily, and more dangerous to good morals than many others which do not share its bad repute. The concert singer, the professional pianist-- all, in fact, who live by music, exist in an atmosphere precisely like that of the actor, but they do not share his odium in the eyes of Mrs. Grundy. But, setting that aside, I repeat that the claim is for consideration of private merit or demerit, without regard to occupation. An actor who leads a correct life is deserving of the same good name, and the same social recognition, as the painter who does the same. An actress who leads an immoral life is by no just man to be held up as a proof that the theatre is demoralizing, any more than a poetess who does the same is to cast a stigma upon all poesy. This article, let it be borne in mind, deals with the worst vice of actors. "Of all classes,: says the American Cyclopedia, "they are the freest from crime." I have heard of but one actor who committed a murder--of no other class in the world can I say the same. For an actor to figure in a criminal trial or to inhabit a prison, is a thing so rare that it is observed and commented on in the same marked manner as crimes among clergymen are. Where crime is rare, it is a sign of the excellence of the class. Where the class presents a few appalling examples, it still does not BOATING. 941 prove the class a bad one--if it did, we could no longer respect the clergy. Intemperance is the worst vice these people have, and all the other features of vice are so little known among them, that this one stands out with undue prominence, and is universally exaggerated and overdrawn. While I deplore its existence, too, I deny that it prevails to the extent commonly claimed, and I assert that it prevails to a greater extent among the people who arrogate to themselves the title of :out best society." I speak of what I know, and not as one who has simply heard from an outside place. I have moved in the highest of those circles, and I have moved in theatrical circles, and I know. The drunken drama, in both its branches, could well be spared the stage. The drunken rôle, whether "moral" or comic, is bad for the auditory; the drunken actor is bad for the auditory, for his art, and for himself. OLIVE LOGAN BOATING. BOATING, boating, boating, Under a dreamy sky, Where a full, bright moon is floating, And clouds like opals lie; The silver tide is slipping Away from reedy shores, And clear, cool drops are dripping From light and easy oars, And forward the land lies darkling, And upward the skies are light, And onward the waves go sparkling, All glad in the Summer night. Afar where the land lies sleeping To songs of the sad night breeze, Long shadows are slowly creeping In silence beneath the trees. But clear on the low, white building A dash of moonlight falls, And lightens, with pale, soft gilding, The gleam of its ghost-like walls. And one lamp glimmers only Where the casement is open wide, And its red rays flicker lonely On the crest of the rippling tide.942 BOATING. Rowing, rowing, rowing, Fanny, and Fred, and I, Onward dreamily going Under the dreamy sky. With ears for the water's dashing In music against the shores, With eyes for the silver flashing And glint of the glist'ning oars. Alight, with moon's clear beaming. In liquid paths we float, Through phosphorescent gleaming That follows the gliding boat. Then Fred, with classic fancies And mythologic vein, From stores of Greek romances He kept in his learned brain, Invoked with charméd stories Old days in their pristine might, And gods that in fabled glories Once peopled Olympus' height, 'Till Apollo and Pallas Athene Came back to the world of man, And the reeds, by the light of Selene, Sang soft to the breath of Pan. But Fanny and I were dreaming, In soft Selene's light, Watching her beauty streaming, Like magic, upon the night. In love with the vague traditions Of things long passed away, In love with the transient visions Brought back from that mystic day— While the waters in song went breaking, On shores that their foam-drops kissed, And the shadowy land, unwaking, Slept softly in dream-like mist. D.M. WORDS AND THEIR USES. MISUSED WORDS. THE right use of words is not a matter to be left to pedants and pedagogues. It belongs to the daily life of every man. The misuse of words confuses ideas, and impairs the value of language as a medium of communication. Hence, loss of time, of money, and sore trial of patience. It is significant that we call a quarrel a misunderstanding. How many lawsuits have ruined both plaintiff and defendant, how many business connections have been severed, how many friendships broken because two men gave to one word different meanings! The power of language to convey one man's thoughts and purposes to another, is in direct proportion to a common consent as to the meaning of words. The moment divergence begins, the value of language is impaired; and it is impaired just in proportion to the divergence, or to the uncertainty of consent. It has been told, as evidence of the richness of certain Eastern languages, that they have a hundred words for a sword, and other hundred for a horse. But this, unless the people who use these languages have a hundred kinds of swords and a hundred kinds of horses, is no proof of wealth in that which makes the real worth of language. A highly civilized and cultivated people with a language adequate to their wants will be rich in words because they will need names for many thoughts and many acts and many things. Parsimony in this respect is a sign not of prudence but of poverty. Juliana, passing her honeymoon in the cottage to which her ducal bridegroom leads her, flouts his assurance that the furniture is useful with the reply, conveying a sneer at his supposed poverty, "Yes, very useful; there's not a piece of it but serves a hundred uses." So, when we find in a language one word serving many needs, we may be sure that language is the mental furniture of an intellectually rude and poverty-stricken people. The Feejee islanders ate usually pig, but they much preferred man, both for his flavor and his rarity; and as we call pig prepared for table pork, and deer in a like condition venison; so, those poor people called their loin or ham "short pig," and their daintier haunch or saddle, "long pig." Archdeacon Trench, presuming that there was in the latter name an attempt at humorous concealment of the nature of the viand to which it was applied, finds in this attempt evidence of a consciousness of the revolting character of cannibalism. But this seems to be one of those pieces of fanciful and over-subtle moral reflection which, coming gracefully enough from a dean, have added to the popularity of Trench's books, although hardly to their real944 WORDS AND THEIR USES. value. The poor Feejeeans called all meat pig, and distinguished two sorts only by the form of the animal from which it was taken, merely because of the rude and embryotic condition of their language, just as a little child calls all fur and velvet "pussy-cat." The child knows as well as its mother that her muff or her gown has not four legs, claws, whiskers, and a tail; and it has no purpose of concealing that knowledge. But its poverty of language enables it to speak of the muff and the velvet gown only by a name which expresses (to the child) the quality which the muff, the gown, and the animal have in common. A neglect to preserve any well-drawn distinction between thoughts or things by words is, just in so far, a return toward barbarism in language. In the London Times's report of the revolting scene in front of the gallows on which Muller (he who killed a fellow passenger in a railway carriage) was hanged it was said that many of the spectators, knowing that if they would get a good place they must wait a long while to see the show, came provided with "jars of beer." Now, I am sure that there was not a jar in all that crown. A jar, which is a big-bellied, wide-mouthed earthen vessel without a handle, would be a most unsuitable and cumbrous vessel on such an occasion in such a place; and beside, beer is neither kept in jars nor drunk from them. The Times's reporter, who is said to have been, on this occasion, a man of letters of some reputation, meant, doubtless, tankards, pots, jugs, or pitchers. Of household vessels for containing fluids we have in English good store of names nicely distinctive of various forms and uses; and some of these there seems to be a chance that we shall lose, through either the ignorance or the indolence of writers and speakers like the Times's reporter. It is not long since every lady in the land had, as Gremio said that Bianca should have, "basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands," although not of gold, as that glib-tongued lover promised. But now we are all, with few exceptions, content to use a bowl and pitcher. The things are the same things they were, only handsomer, but we have, many of us, at least, given up the distinction between bowl and basin and common pitcher and ewer, and in so far we have retrograded in civility. Some British writers and speakers say "a basin of bread and milk." We may be sure they mean a bowl, for a basin is a most uncomfortable vessel to eat from; and if they mean a bowl they should say a bowl; for although we have dropped porringer except in poetry (yet there are men living who, in their childhood, have talked of as well as eaten out of porringers), we may as well try and preserve some distinction between the names of our domestic utensils, unless, emulating the simplicity of the Feejeeans in their short pig and long pig, we call them all, for example, cup, and say short cup, long cup, high cup, low cup, big cup, little cup, deep cup, shallow WORDS AND THEIR USES. 945 cup. Our British kinsmen have, during the last fifty or perhaps hundred years, fallen into the use of a peculiar misnomer in this respect. They, without exception, I believe, talk of the water-jug and the milk-jug, meaning the vessels in which water and milk are served at table. Now, those vessels are not jugs, but pitchers. A jug is a vessel having a small mouth, a swelling belly, and a small ear or handle near the mouth; and this we know they never have at table: a pitcher is a vessel with a wide mouth shaped into a spout, and a large ear: and this we know that they, as well as we, do use at table for milk and for water. The thing has had the name for centuries. Hence the old saying that little pitchers (not little jugs) are all mouth and ears. Little pitchers, from the physical necessity of their shape and proportion, must be all mouth and ears: little jugs have mouths and ears in proportion to their size. This word, by the by, is the best test, if indeed it is not the only sure test, of the birthplace of a cultivated man of English blood;—for as to the uncultivated, no nice test is needed. Been and bin, a quarter to 12 and a quarter of 12 o'clock, railway station and railroad depot, even pitch and inflection of voice may fail to make the distinction; but if a man asks for the milk jug, be sure that he is British bred; if for the milk pitcher, be equally sure that he is American. But perhaps some people are quite indifferent whether or no it is said that they sip their coffee out of a jar, drink their beer from a vase, and put their flowers into a jug. Such readers will not be at all interested in the following remarks upon the misuse of certain English words. It is not my purpose in these remarks to notice slang, but I shall notice cant. Between the two, although they are often confounded, there is a clear distinction. Slang is a vocabulary of genuine words or unmeaning jargon, used always with an arbitrary and conventional signification, and generally with humorous intent. It is mostly coarse, low and foolish; although in some cases, owing to circumstances of the time, it is racy, pungent, and pregnant of meaning. Cant is a phraseology composed of genuine words soberly used by some sect, profession, or sort of men, in one legitimate sense, which they adopt to the exclusion of others as having peculiar virtue, and which thereby becomes peculiar to themselves. Cant is more or less enduring, its use continuing, with no variation of meaning, through generations. Slang is very evanescent. It generally passes out of use and out of mind in the course of a few years, or even a few months. APT. This little word, the proper meaning of which it is almost impossible to express by definition and periphrasis, is in danger of losing its fine sense, and of being degraded into a servant of general utility for the range of thought between liable and likely. I have before me a letter published by a woman of some not, who, asking for contributions to her means of nursing sick and wounded soldiers, 946 WORDS AND THEIR USES. says that anything directed to her at a certain place "will be apt to come." The blunder is amusing. I have no doubt it provoked many smiles; and yet how delicate is the line which divides this use of the word from the correct one! To say that a package will be apt to come, is inadmissible; but to say that it would be apt to miscarry, would provoke no remark. This lady meant that the packages would be likely to come. Her error was of the same sort as that of the member from the rural districts, who, driving into a village, called out to a person whom he met, "I say, Mister, kin yer tell me where I'd be liable to buy some beans?" A man is liable to that to which he is exposed, or obliged, or subject; but he is not liable to act. He is liable to take cold, to pay another man's debts, or to incur his wife's displeasure. He is liable to fall in love, but, unless he is a very weak brother, he is not liable to be married. Aptness and liability both express conditions--one of fitness and readiness, the other of exposure--inherent in the person or thing of which they are predicated. A man may be liable to catch the plague or to fall in love, and yet not be apt to do either. For manhood's sake we would not say of any man that he is liable to be married, yet, under certain circumstances, most men are apt to get married; and having done so, a man is liable, and may be apt, to have a beautiful family of children. BOUNTIFUL. This word is very generally misused both in speech and in writing. The phrase, a bountiful dinner, a bountiful break- fast, or, to be fine, a bountiful repast, is continually met with in newspapers, wherein we also read of bountiful receipts at the box offices of theatres, and even, in a leading article of a journal of the first class now before me, of "bountifully filled hourly trains." This use of the word altogether perverts and degrades it from its true meaning, which is too valuable to be lost without an effort for its preservation. Bountiful applies to persons, not to things, and has no reference to quantity; although quantity in benefits received is often the consequence of bountifulness in the giver. The humble and religious rich man regards his worldly goods as the gilt of a bountiful God. Lady Bountiful was so named because of the benefits she conferred. But the things that she gave—the food and clothing—were not bountiful. A breakfast or dinner which is paid for by those who eat it, has no relations of any kind to bounty but it may be plentiful; and if it is given in alms or in compliment it will be plentiful because the giver is bountiful. The repasts, collations and banquets above referred to were plentiful; the receipts at the theatres large; and if for the absurd phrase, “bountifully filled trains, the writer should substitute “ well-filled or crowded trains,” he would produce a variation toward sense and plain English. The same journal, in the following paragraph, which is WORDS AND THEIR USES. 947 disfigured by the word employes, furnishes an example of the correct, and the only correct use of bountiful. The House on Saturday voted 20 per cent, additional compensation to Government employes, which is so much specifically added to our taxes. We cannot see that the act is either necessary or bountiful; it is simply extravagant. Crime. The common confusion of the words crime, vice, and sin, is probably due, in a great measure, to a failure to distinguish the things. The distinction was long ago made, although hardly with sufficent exactness. Crime is a violation of the law of a particular country. What is crime in one country may not be crime in another; what is crime in one country at one time may not be crime in the same country at another time. Sin is the violation of a religious law, which may be common to many countries and yet be acknowledged by only a part of the inhabitants of one. What is sin among Jews or Mohammedans is, in some cases, not sin among Christians, and vice versa. Vice has been defined as a violation of the moral law; but to make this definition exact in terms and universal in application, a consent as to the requirements of the moral law is necessary. Vice is a course of action or habit of life which is harmful to the actor or wrongful to others. The viciousness of an act is not dependent upon the country, or the creed of the person who commits it, or of the people among whom it is committed. That which is criminal may be neither sinful nor vicious ; that which is sinful neither criminal nor vicious; and that which is vicious neither criminal nor sinful. Thus, smuggling is a crime, but neither a sin nor a vice; covetousness and blasphemy are sins and vices, but not crimes; gambling is a crime and a vice, but not a sin; idleness is vice, but, in itself, neither sin nor crime; while theft is criminal, sinful and vicious. The magnitude of the wrong in some acts raises them above or sinks them below the level of vice. Murder is not a vice. It would not be well to speak of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents as a vicious or even a most vicious act. The idea of continuity, or of possible continuity, of a habit of action is conveyed in the word vice. Filial disrespect is vicious, but the same cannot be said of parricide; for although parricide is filial disrespect carried to the extreme, it cannot become a habit, because a man can have but one father and one mother. Transpire. Of all misused words, this verb is probably the most perverted. It is now rarely used except for the expression of a mode of action with which it has no relations whatever. Words may wander by courses, more or less tortuous, so far from their original meaning as to make it almost impossible to follow their traces. An instance of this, well known to students of language, is the word buxom, which is simply bow-some or boughsome, i. e., that which readily bows or yields like the boughs of a tree. No longer ago than when Milton wrote, boughsome, which,948 WORDS AND THEIR USES. as gh in English began to lose its guttural sound -- that of the letter chi in Greek -- came to be written buxom, meant simply yielding, general application: — and, this once known shall soon return And bring ye to the place where thou and Death Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the buxom air.—Paradise Lost, ii., 840. But, aided, doubtless, as Dr. Johnson suggests, by a too liberal construction of the bride’s promise in the old English marriage ceremony, to be "obedient and buxom in bed and board," it came afterward to be an epithet for women who seemed most likely to be thus yielding; and hence it now means plump, rosy, alluring, and is applied only to women who combine those qualities of figure, face, and expression. Transpire, however, has passed through no such gradual modification of meaning. It has not been modified, but forced. Its common abuse is due solely to the blunder of persons who used it although they were ignorant of its meaning, at which they guessed. Transpire means to breathe through, and so to pass off insensibly. The identical word exists in French, in which language it is the equivalent of our perspire, which also means to breathe through and so to pass off insensibly. The Frenchman says fai beaucoup transpire—I have much perspired. In fact, transpire and perspire are etymologically as nearly perfect synonyms as the nature of language permits; the latter, however, has, by common consent, been set apart in English to express the passage of a certain secretion through the skin, while the former is properly used only in a figurative sense to express the passage of knowledge from a limited circle to publicity. Here follow examples of the proper, and the only proper or tolerable use of this word; and these examples, because I have had such frequent occasion to censure severely the general use of words in newspapers, I have pleasure in saying are from the columns of New York journals: Who the writer of this pamphlet was who, four years before the great uprising in 1848, saw so clearly, and spoke so pointedly, has, to our knowledge, never transpired. After 12 o’clock last night it transpired that the Massachusetts delegation had voted unanimously in caucus to present the name of General Butler for Vice President. The following very marked and instructive example of the correct use of transpire is, marvellous to relate, from one of the telegrams of the Associated Press: At a quarter past four o’clock Judge Fisher received a communication from the jury, and he sent a written reply. The subject of the correspondence has not transpired. WORDS AND THEIR USES. 949 The next is from the London Times : The Liberals of Nottingham, England, have selected Lord Amberley and Mr. Handel Cossham as their candidates. It has not yet transpired who the conservative candidate will be. The election, the first after the vote on the Reform bill, will be of great importance. But the same number of the same paper furnishes, in the report of a speech by a member of Parliament (I neglected to note by whom), the following example of the common misuse of the word in the sense of occur, take place. The insurrection in Jamaica was the subject of discussion: -- ; so that, notwithstanding that the population of the Island was 450,000, it was stated that only 1,500 voted for the members of the Legislature. The whole thing had culminated in the horrors and the atrocities which had lately transpired there, and which he was obliged to believe had thrown discredit upon the English government and the English character in every other country in the world. So I find it said in a prominent New York newspaper that "the Mexican war transpired in the year 1847." The writer might as well, and, considering the latitude in which the battles were fought, might better, have said that the Mexican war perspired in the year 1847. The most monstrous perversion of the word that I have ever met with, than which it would seem that none could be more monstrous, is in the following sentences, the first from a paper of the highest position, the last from a volume of which tens of thousands have been sold, and which aspires to the dignity of history: Before this can be finished, years may transpire ; indeed, it may take as long to complete the West Bank Island Hospital as it has taken to erect the new Court-house. More than a century was allowed to transpire before the Mississippi was revisited by civilized man. To any person who has in mind the meaning of the word, the idea of years and centuries transpiring is ridiculous. There is a very simple test of the correct use of transpire, which any person can apply to his own speech or that of others. If the phrase take place can be substituted for it and the intended meaning of the sentence is preserved, its use is wrong, preposterously wrong; if the other colloquial phrase, leak out, can be put in its place, its use is correct. This is illustrated in the following sentence : An important cabinet meeting was held to day; but what took place did not transpire. Richard Grant White. 60A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC Although it is stated that David was skillful with the harp, and that the nerves of the turbulent Saul were quieted thereby, we can not judge very clearly of the character of the music of their day. Nor is it likely that the musicians spoken of in Holy Writ, who played upon harps, tabors, and other "sacred instruments"-could they be introduced to a modern audience- would be severally called out, or receive very flattering notices from the musical critics. Solomon might have been satisfied with the music of the four thousand priests, who evoked from all sorts of instruments all sorts of tunes, pitched on every key, at his coronation. But what modern tympanum could have withstood it? Bad music is one of the worst of bad things; and if it is true, as the proverb says, that "walls have ears," we ought in no wise to be surprised when we read that the walls of Jericho fell down at the blowing of rams' horns. But the Easterns have always been a musical people in their way - their singing generally resembling a wail, though often there is an ineffable sweetness in the melody. It is always a plaintive minor, as in the case with nearly all primitive music. Some of the melodies of Egypt remain probably unchanged since the days of Moses; so that the chant an Eastern traveller listens to to-day may be the one that Israel sung, if he could sing, while toiling under his taskmasters. Our "sacred" poems and dramas generally become sacred by virtue of containing something about the Jews and their early history. A piece of music is sacred, and may be played on Sunday, if the accompanying words contain some mention of Joshua or David, or some other of the biblical heroes- we are not quite sure about Judas Maccabaeus, as he appears only in the Apocrypha. It is essential that the subject should be Jewish or very early Christian. An oratorio on the capture of Jericho by Joshua would be sacred; but an oratorio on the capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey would be profane, and could not be lawfully sung between Saturday and Monday. Fashionable modern music seems rather an invention than a natural gift. The ears of musical critics are rarely pleased with the Orphean melodies that charm the multitude A capricious undulation of musical tones, inexplicable mazes of sound, excite their raptures. In the confused flourishes of some great violinist, the amateur pretends to see the waving of a magician's wand; swarms of canary birds and troops of fairies issue from the holes, and trilling waterfalls precipitate themselves over the bridge of the violin. A rustic A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC 951 is at his side, listening, also; but the latter's heart opens to no emotion, save that to which his mouth opens- surprise. When we listen to the overture of an opera, the vast body of strings, the pure quality of tone, the perfect execution of the wind band, and the marvellous drilling of the entire body- everything is so like machinery that we almost imagine the conductor has the letters- patent in his pocket. Now, it is in vain to deny that simple music is good, or that intricate music is good. Tell the tender-hearted school-girl, who is wiping her eyes at the singing of "Come Home, Father," that the song is only fit for a lullaby to an infant, and you may expect a second briny outburst at your barbarity. Next accost the finical lover of musical mazes, whose soul is steeled against all ballads and part-songs, and who never expresses pleasure except by grimaces at the worst grimaces of an opera singer. Tell him that his taste is artificial, and that ingenious sounds, wrought out by manual dexterity or a gymnastic training of the voice, are not necessarily expressive of emotion- he will ask you if you execrate all that is strange and far-fetched in music; "if you do," he adds, "you despise Mozart and Beethoven." How shall we escape from this dilemma? Easily. Only believe that music has room for both simplicity and ingenuity; that neither is necessarily contemptible; that simplicity is the more eloquent, ingenuity the more fascinating; that the former will touch the hearts of all, the latter delight the taste of a few. There are many hidden sources of harmony for man's genius to develop, but the basis of all music is found in Nature herself. The songs of birds have probably furnished more subjects for composers than all other sources beside. Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and many eminent musicians, have introduced bird songs into their compositions with the most charming effect. Among the feathered warblers may be found all the requisite voices for a modern choir. The canary sings on the key of A; the lowest notes are those of the cormorant, who may be considered the basso of the bird race, his notes resembling those of a trombone, being an exceedingly monotonous, continual strain upon B flat. The mocking bird gives a variety of sounds, and learns wholly by imitation. The nightingale continues his song for twenty seconds, in the most beautiful and solemn melody, on the key of D. The cuckoo announces the arrival of Spring with two notes on F sharp and D natural. The owl hoots but one single note on B flat. The crowing of the cock consists of five notes: F sharp, then two upon B natural, one on A sharp, and the fifth upon B natural. Cooing doves have two notes, twice sounded in succession, E and C. The cries of animals, the buzzing on insects, the melodies of the winds, the roaring of storms,952 A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. the murmuring of brooks, the waterfall, the mighty music of the ocean, are all upon the key of F and its relative minor D. The brute creation, generally, seem fond of music, and some orchestral performances would undoubtedly be agreeable in any lively barnyard. They would admirably accord with the notes of the feathered and featherless minstrels of such localities; combining the cackling and crowing of the chanticleer and his wives, the trombone-like gabbling of the geese, the lowing of the cows (cow bell inclusive), the double bass accompaniment of Taurus, with the braying of Johnny down among the saxhorns. Who has not read, in days agone, the story of the fiddler and the wolves: Whether true or not, we used to believe it in our childhood, and the story probably made many youthful believers in the virtue of catgut as a specific against wolves. That some animals are possessed of excellent musical taste, is a well-known fact of natural history. Paganini, when practicing in his study, was regularly visited by a mouse, which would come fearlessly from its hiding place, and, after listening with the greatest apparent satisfaction, fly frightened to its retreat when the music ceased. Seals, it is said, will follow a vessel for miles if there be music on board. Of this the ancient poets tell us, and Walter Scott hath sung: Rude Heiskar's seals, through surges dark, Will long pursue the minstrel's bark. Moncrif, in his biography of Mlle. Dupuy, the celebrated harpist, states that she was convinced that she owed her artistic excellence to her favorite cat. as soon as she began a prelude on the instrument, her cat assumed an attitude of intense attention. On coming to any passage of peculiar beauty, the excited grimalkin went into a feline ecstacy; and so well measured was this sensibility, according to the excellence of the playing and the pathos of the composition, that Mlle. Dupuy was able to judge of the quality of the music by the manifest emotions of her cat. She came to believe that the nervous creature was an exact prophet, foretelling precisely how the music would affect a human audience. Nothing can better illustrate the effect of music upon horses than a cavalry review, as every movement in that branch of service is indicated by the bugle. Who has not listened with delight to the joyous overture of Fra Diavolo? Yet few are perhaps aware that the animated movement at the commencement is the cavalry "boot-and-saddle" call. In an army music is next to an absolute necessity, and warfare would seem a ridiculous pantomime without it. The was cry of the savage, the pibroch of the Highlander, and the well-drilled band of the regulars, are but varieties of the same necessary battle-music. Imagine our own army, for instance, during the Rebellion, without brigade bands and regimental drum-corps. Had there A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. 953 been no military band on the flagship, the "hero of New Orleans" could not have requested the band-master to play "Picayune Butler's Coming to Town" as the Union fleet entered the harbor of that city, and we should have lost one of the best comic stories of the war. Think of our victorious veterans marching through the streets of Richmond in solemn silence, with no straining of brass or belaboring of sheepskin! The first morning after the grand army crossed the Rapidan, in the Spring of '64, General Meade's headquarter band played the reveille, awakening the thousands of brave sleepers to participate in the terrific battles of the Wilderness. Twice during those sanguinary struggles were the bands made useful -- once to play in the first line of battle, where the fight was raging with fierce uncertainty, and again to call together the panic-stricken right of the Sixth Corps, which was turned by the Rebels one evening just before dark. On the latter occasion, "Yankee Doodle" did, in one hour, what the whole Provost Guard of the army could not have done in twenty-four. Though "Yankee Doodle" arouses the patriotism of a true American, at home and abroad, it is universally known that the air is not American, but the British first used it in this country, with words of ridicule and contempt. Charles Mackay, the most unprejudiced, truthful, and talented English tourist that has visited this country, though lavish in his praise of the literary and scientific attainments of the American people, is obliged to confess their lack of originality in music. He declares "Hail Columbia" to be a version of the roystering old English ditty, "When Bibo thought fit from this World to Retreat," and the "Star-Spangled Banner" another old English tune. The negro melodies of the United States share the same fate with him. "Buffalo Gals" is an old Christmas Carol; "Bobbin' Round," "Uncle Ned," and many other alleged negro melodies are all built upon English, Scotch and Irish foundations. But it is hard for us to believe that the gifted and lamented Stephen C. Foster, who added to the repertoire of music so many truly beautiful songs of this character, resorted to any such means. His music strikes the ear with a freshness and originality peculiar to itself. His "Old Folks at Home" had probably a larger sale than any other song of the kind ever published in this country. "Yankee Doodle" has long been identified with our national glory and greatness, and has also been the theme of many jokes and pleasantries. There was a good story told, during the late war of a party of Union officers who, singularly enough, became acquainted with the daughters of a Rebel chieftain while he was absent at his duties in the field. The young ladies so far overcame their natural prejudices against Yankees as to make arrangements for a ball at their father's house, in honor of their blue-coated acquaintances. The officers furnished the music from a regimental954 A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. band, and everything went on charmingly. Each party was careful to make no allusions to the war that might wound the sensibilities of the other. During the evening one of the young ladies approached the leader of the band, and, in her most winning tone, asked him if he would favor the company with the "Federal Doodle!" But the latest story in regard to this "national" air is told by Mr. Perry, the present Secretary of the American Legation at Madrid. While in one of the Basque provinces, he heard a band playing the old Spanish airs, which, with their language and customs, have been preserved from the earliest period in which they are known to history. After the band had played several other airs, it struck up "Yankee Doodle," the very tune, in every note, which is so familiar to American ears. Mr. Perry immediately claimed it as our national air. "It is one of our old tunes," said a Spanish gentleman to whom he spoke, "and I can convince you of the fact; for hundreds of years it has been a popular air among us." The gentleman afterward made good his assertion by showing Mr. Perry a manuscript of great antiquity which contained the identical music of "Yankee," alias "English," alias "Spanish Doodle." Next to "Yankee Doodle," in general popularity with the American people, probably some of the oldest negro melodies will take rank. "Ole Dan Tucker," "Ole Zip Coon," "O Susanna," and "Camptown Races," have been whistled and sung, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by everybody who can whistle or sing at all. The story and tune of the "Arkansas Traveller" have been told and fiddled by fun-loving thousands for years, particularly at the West and South. It is in the Southwestern States that the "Hickory Filled," Commonly called the "Bull Fiddle," originated. The bull fiddle is the only implement of music which the squatters claim as their exclusive invention. It was once frequently employed to call the people together for sports, about the time of the holidays, and the instrument was of great utility when the country was sparsely settled, and where society could not enjoy the luxuries of chimes and calliopes. In fact, the bull fiddle is to a common violin what the calliope is to a clarionet. It is, in volume of sound, the violon-cello's great-granddad, multiplied by a hundred, and adding several dozen catamounts and wildcats. The bull fiddle is not a complicated instrument. It is about fifteen feet long, by four feet wide, and its frame is made of "seasoned studding" about four inches square. There are two bridges of hickory about five feet long, and the strings are made of hickory or ash fence-rails, fastened at each end of the bridges, and well rosined. It takes about two pounds of rosin for the strings. The bow is made of a small hickory sapling, and instead of horse-hair, a large splint of hickory is used; and after the bow is properly bent, this splint is ingeniously fastened A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. 955 with pegs to each end, and the manufacturer "rosins the bow" with about a pound of rosin. This being completed, a "squatter" at each end of the bow tries the tone of the instrument. If not sufficiently sonorous, they shave down the strings, and "rosin" again. When finished, it discourses the loudest music known, drowning entirely the screechings of the panthers, with the howl of the great gray wolf. But let us not, while considering the mirthful and extravagant music of this country, forget the popular affection for the old hymns. The very mention of "Coronation," "China," "Mear," "Ortonville," or any other tunes of the "Old Fashioned Choir," takes us back to childhood again, and for a moment we forget that there are such things in the world as the "great organ," or fashionable, high-salaried choirs. Our Puritan fathers stripped religion bare of all pageantry. No ordinance of worship would be allowed by them to receive force from any appeal to the eye or ear. The images of the saints never glorified their windows. No Gothic arch made their hearts pant after the lofty and grand. No swelling organ woke deep echoes in the heart; no rich music of a hundred voices thrilled their souls into pious ecstacy. Nasal-twanged psalmody was the only music, sacred or secular, tolerated by the saints of Puritanic Utopia. They discarded prayer-books, priestly vestments, and musical instruments -- preferring to "wrestle with the devil"single-handed and unarmed. It is singular with what rapidity the worshippers at the naked altar turned back to the ceremonial services, to organs and Gothic architecture. Stranger still is it that the first instrument introduced into the choirs of New England churches should have been the violin -- the most fantastic, vivacious, capricious, unsolemn of all the instrumental tribe, and inevitably associated with ball-rooms, cotillons and chandeliers. When the question of introducing this instrument into an old Congregational church, in a certain village in Connecticut, first came up, a sharp debate ensued. The old folks, as a general thing, were opposed to it. They would consider it a sacrilege. The novelty of the arrangement, on the other hand, arrayed all the young people in its favor. As is generally the case, the innovation triumphed, and the following Sunday brought both fiddler and fiddle into church. But after the introductory prayer and reading of the Scriptures, as soon as the first thrilling squeak of the violin was heard, Deacon Jones, who sat close by the pulpit, sprang up, danced once or twice "forward and back," then taking a "chassez" down the aisle, keeping admirable time to the instrument, danced out of the church, to return to it no more. We can not dispel the belief that fully one-half the church-going people of to-day are -- or were at the first -- impelled thither by the956 A NOTE OR TWO ON MUSIC. growing excellence in church music. So that many, who first entered the sanctuary to listen to the playing of the "new organist," have been unconsciously, as it were, added to the flock of the shepherd whose eloquence proved as powerful as the music. The Church of St. Stephens, in New York, was made attractive to thousands by its exquisite music, far too operatic for Protestant worship, but very delightful to the people who thronged the Romish temple. It was gorgeous music. All the celebrities of the opera, from time to time, added their voices to the choir of St. Stephens, which was always crowded by those who got their music there for nothing, while the opera is a costly luxury. Dr. Cummings, under whose fostering care the church became popular, was an artistic admirer and cultivator of music. While on his deathbead, a friend who had often visited him called one day, and as he was about to leave, the Doctor expressed his belief that it would soon be over with him, but added, "Come to the funeral - the music will be splendid!" There is something grim, almost heroic, if it were not also playful, in this idea of inviting a friend to your own funeral to hear the music! M.A. CARY. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. BY REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. CHAPTER XL. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DAY. HE did not go to-morrow. Day slipped into day, month into month, until Winter had passed into Summer, and Summer into Winter again. But turns he worked feverishly for weeks, or was totally idle; it was noticeable, however, that when he worked he did not heed how coarse the labor was. There was no talk now of its fitness for the hands of a gentleman. He worked desperately, as a monk might have done violent penance by which he hoped to cleanse himself of some long-ago stain. But the weeks of lazy lounging and ill-temper followed as surely. Meanwhile flour, and mean, and clothes must be bought. Ross and little Joe tugged on together, baby though one was. Some manner of pilgrimage tests the quality of every man or woman in life; there were times now when to Ross the water was bitter, and the manna scanty; when she could almost have cried aloud in her extremity, "Why hast Thou brought me here to die before my time?" But as her eyes sank into deeper hollows, they learned to be more tender to her husband. She could see the Leader before them, but Garrick wandered apart in a solitary way. He had lost faith in the Randolphs, in himself; he had been more certain of them than of God. He kept his hold of his wife's hand: it was his one anchor. Perhaps her strong, healthy-colored physique, her elastic spirits, and sunny temper were of more apparent help to him, in this time of his life, than the religion that underlaid them. But the end came at last, when the war was over, that time which cut short so many tangled threads. One warm May evening, Roslyn sat sewing on her farm-house porch, her sturdy little Joe playing at her feet, and old Mr. Conrad in a great wooden chair beside her. "Yes, it is heartsome," in answer to some remark of hers. "I know just the yellow light there is yonder in the west; and the dogwood's like swarms of white butterflies in the woods now, I reckon, eh? But, About Meg?" lowering his voice, anxiously. "I was going to say that I'm disappointed in Meg. It's a carnal disappointment, too. But Margaret always seemed to me to belong to that old Titan race we read of, with her large, white limbs, and958 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. powerful brain, that's been dumb so long. I foresaw to look for some great utterance when it spoke. Yes, I did. If it had been in words or music she told what was in her, I'd not have been surprised if the whole world had stopped to listen. But when she ends in sittin' down to teach a lot of big and little niggers in Baker street, day after day -" "But it is like your own work." "O, I'm a different affair. But with Meg's beauty and power! Mean hands for mean work, I say." "But it was her master's work," gently. "Surely," absently, "Well, the black blood is not abhorrent to her now. If she had been less bitter once ------" Ross said nothing. The war was over; and that meant to her that four millions of men and women were thrown on the nation for protection and help; men and women whose brains and bodies were diseased and incomplete from generations of barbarism and slavery. Waiting for payment of their wrong; for the late chance which came in turn to every nation. It was in curious accord with her thoughts that, when she raised her eyes, she saw, standing at the foot of the steps a mulatto with his hat in hand, who might have served as a type of his class; a meagre, stooped, coffee-colored man, with a cowed, pinched face, and slow, melancholy eyes. His tone, when he spoke, had the reticent quiet of one who had learned his rights and meant to maintain them. He came, he saw to see Mr. Randolph, bowing without a smile. Ross rose with a vague alarm, at her husband's name. The shadow of his secret, half guessed by her, pursued her day and night. She did not know what hour it would arrest them. "You have travelled far to see my husband?" when she had sent to summon him. "It wur a long way, Missus." She hesitated before the next question, glancing doubtfully at Mr. Conrad. Broderip's name, for some undefined reason, was now never mentioned among them. After the battle near Bermuda Hundred, where he led his blacks into the charge, he was reported missing. Whether he had been shot on the field, or taken prisoner was never known. She hesitated, as if about to unearth the dead, before she said, "You are the brother of Doctor Broderip, who went with him into the war?" Nathan bowed, but did not speak. There was a moment's silence. "Where have you left him?" He looked up dully. "I'se loss him. He wur took to Andersonville. Dar wur no exchange for de officers of cullored regiments. Dar wus nothin' but death for them." Conrad brought down his stick heavily on the ground, "No!" standing up, pale and trembling. "John Broderip never was suffered WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 959 to die like a rat in a hole! God is just. It will be given to him to see the freedom of his people." But Nathan's eye did not kindle; he shook his head hopelessly, and then it sank, as before, on his breast. "And your wife and boy?" said Ross, softly. "God knows, Missus, God knows. I've sarched fur dem, it's long years now. I heerd dey come Norf. But dey's loss to me, I reckon." Ross' eyes flashed. She knew, through old Joe, that they were still alive, and on the Strebling place; but she kept her own counsel. A sudden wrench came to her heart as she heard Garrick's slow, lounging step. It was the last chance. The sight of this man might rouse him; but it was the last chance, and a slight one. He came out on the porch, in his flowered dressing-robe, and stood still, looking at Nathan as he rose. The mulatto's keen glance ran over him. "I've an arrand fur you, suh," in the same monotonous voice, a little raised. "I'se lost brother an' wife an' chile. Dar's but one I ken find, an' I kum to you for him, suh. Dat's my father, ole Hugh." Brought face to face at last with his miserable secret, in commonplace words, Garrick stood motionless, looking in the man's face. There was no surprise in his own; he had waited the summons too long. But the thin, fastidious features, in their frame of waving brown hair, grew curiously rigid and discolored, as if a cold finger had touched the heart underneath. "You sent him to Georgy, suh," simply stating the fact, with no reproach in the tone. "Dat wur de time when you had de right to send us to Georgy; but we cullored people is gittin' togedder in families agin, now - mudder and brudders and chillen. I'se got none left but de old man, suh, if he's libin'. If you'll gib me a hint, suh, I'll find him." Garrick looked over Nathan's head into the pleasant May evening. Without turning to them he saw Rosslyn's eyes upon his face: they seemed as if she asked life or death at the hands of God; he saw little, chubby Joe in the sand at his feet. A chill passed through him as if some deathly nightmare lost its hold; he drew a long breath, and then a strange clearness came into his face. "Come in, Nathan," he said, quietly. "I will go with you tomorrow to find him." "You'll find him alive!" said Conrad, in an under tone. "And Broderip will return. God is just!" But Garrick did not hear him. He only saw his wife's face, flushed, grand and tender with the trust, looking for the first time out from her soul to his. She laid her hand on his arm as they went in together. No words passed between them, but she knew that he had returned forever to his true self to her.960 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. Garrick went with the mulatto in the morning. Friend Blanchard, who had driven out for breakfast, stood by Ross in the window, watching the tears and smiles on her face, that had grown both pale and thin in the last year. The old Quakeress shrewdly guessed the secret, but she was turning away without notice when Ross' thoughts broke out aloud. "He promised to return before the boy's birthday, and to bring both the negroes. I have a plan for that day, if you will aid me." "Does thy husband know it, Rosslyn?" putting her finger on the girl's lips. "Let him be first to hear thy little secrets. Husbands, in my day, were wont to be more jealous of women friends than of lovers." Ross blushed, and, taking up Joe, began to talk suddenly of the croup, in which the old lady joined with a sad, amused smile on her withered face. One topic after another had been tacitly interdicted between them, until nothing was left but Joe and his ailments. Perhaps this silence between the two women brought them nearer than any speech had ever done. When she was gone, Aunt Laura brought her crochet-work to the writing-table, where Ross was seated. "I find Garrick has not taken his medicine-case, Rosslyn. I think the risk run by his going into those low, swampy ground, at this season of the year, is very great -- and so I should have told him, if my advice had been asked. But young people stand in need of not counsel now-a-days. I can conceive of no business sufficiently important to tempt the risk. What was his business, Rosslyn?" "I do not know certainly. I thought it better not to interfere, Aunt Laura;" and Ross fitted a Pen into its handle. Aunt Laura laid down her sewing. "Rosslyn, you do not know your first rights as a wife! You could have a very good influence over Garrick, if you chose -- very good. But you should insist on absolute confidence. However, I am tired advising you. What was it I heard you say of the boy's birthday? I shall not be here, however, so it matters little to me." Ross got up and gave the feeble little face a cordial kiss. "Why should you not be here? Why should n't we all, for one, be glad together? It seems to me, since peace and freedom both came, as if a new morning had dawned for the world, and I cannot help thinking of my boy as being a part of it. I thought I would like to bring a little good to others on the day he was given to me." "Then I must say, my dear, you are very foolish, if, as I suppose, you are going to mix yourself up in Freedmen's Aid Societies, and the like; meddling with the everlasting negroes. A mother who keeps her children well dressed, and manages their teething properly, has no time for such philanthropy, or other philandering." WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 961 "I'm not fit to be in society," said Ross, simply, dipping her pen in the ink. "I always quarrel with the other women. But Joe has to learn that the best work for a man is to help somebody weaker than himself; and I think his mother ought to teach him that." "That is another affair from negro worship," said Aunt Laura, complacently; and Ross wrote her letter to old Joe, undisturbed. CHAPTER XLI. CHIVALRY'S HARVEST. A low sunset striking oblique lines of sultry yellow light over plats of rice fields; in the front, a white, verandahed house gutted and half burned; a clump of singed mulberry trees at its back. The quarters were, however, untouched by fire, and swarming with negroes of every shade from a sickly chalky hue to oily black. Garrick Randolph stood on the charred steps of the house porch looking down at them; a squat man with shrewd eyes, looking from bushy red eyebrows, the former overseer of the place, was beside him. "There is little chance of success in your search here, Mr. Randolph," hitching up his trousers. "The old man is most probably in some of the dens in Savannah, if alive." "I was told there were large numbers of freedmen collected along this shore, and thought it worth inspection. I never before saw such masses of blacks as I have found congregated in Georgia and Carolina," running his eye thoughtfully over the descent. "I begin to feel that they might become a power in the country, under certain conditions, of course." "They're a weight that'll bring it to perdition if they're ever given a vote," growled the man. "The more reason that they should be made fit to vote," said Randolph, quickly. "Where is the owner of this place?" "Layton? Killed at Antietam. His widow is with her kin in Carolina. What could she do with this wasted land, and no niggers? Some of these people worked for Stacy back of the ridge, and demanded wages, but Stacy contrived that the wages jest paid the rent of their quarters, and there wasn't a penny over for food. Fifteen died on that plantation last Winter of sheer starvation. What of that? Stacey knowed when Congress made his niggers free, it meant it. Their dead bodies was nothing out of his pocket now. Then agin, the old uns and babies ain't counted in on most plantations, in the payment of rations. 'Wages you want, and wages you shall have!' says Stacy; 'but them as can't work needn't beg.' Stacy's sharp." 962 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. "But these old men have given their strength and years to him," said Garrick, raising his voice, as the face of Hugh grew suddenly real to him. "Well, " reflectively, "some of the planters are both just and kind in suiting themselves and their people to the new order of things. They pay fair wages. But with them as owned large gangs it's different. You can't in natur' expect much sympathy between a man and two or three hundred field hands he's been choused out of, eh ? Like them," nodding contemptuously to the swarming crown below. "I should like to go among them, Mr. Ringold." "Certainly, certainly. I'll go down with you, sir," and Ringold preceded him and shouldered a passage, using the butt-end of his heavy riding-whip about him as composedly as if it had fallen on brambles in his way, instead of women and children's heads. Randolph found himself speaking to them gently, as he had never done to his own slaves. The very tones of his voice had, somehow, a tang like those of Ross. A great, sluggish, sinking mass, he thought, shaken out of its old place in the nation. Where was the lever to raise it? What mortar would cement it in its place again? "How do you mean to live?" he demanded of a withered old fellow with a mat of white wool about his dried, monkey face. "Mass' Ringold tink he raise de cotton crop, hyur, an'we gwine in on de sheers. We's free men now, suh." "But until then?" You'll starve in the meantime." "Jes so, Mars'," which the gathering circle echoed solemnly. "Whose cows are those?" suddenly pointing to a herd of fifteen or twenty grazing below. "Dey's strays. We den milks dem." "Why not sell the milk in Savannah ? Send it down in a bateau? Sell the butter; it is worth its weight in gold there now," eagerly. "Why not go to work and plant corn, yams—anything, on this ground on which you have squatted? You could make double the proceed of the cotton crop." "Jes so, Mars'." the old man assented, nodding more solemnly. "De good Lo'd knows dat's so." "I tell you," said Randolph, growing angry, "that famine is before you. It's written plainly on the face of this country. Will you do what I say?" "Suh," submissively, "de good Lo'd knows dem words ob yours is de truf. Mars' Ringold, hyur, he's gwine to raise de cotton crop, an' we den is gwine in on de sheers. We's free men, you see, suh." "And so they'll come back to the same words if you reasoned with them for hours: like a dog about a turnspit," said Ringold as they turned away, "A nigger's got neither reason nor thrift, and you can't make silk out of sow's skin." WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 963 "The negro in the North, wherever he has had the education of the white, has been equally thrifty. But he is everywhere imitative, and what thrift do you expect from the slaves when Southern masters were—what they were?" Randolph stopped suddenly. He had not realized before how, since he came back to the South, he had been echoing the opinions he had forced from Ross from time to time—opinions for which he had lectured her sharply the very day before he left. His face grew hot for a moment, and then he forgot her, and, five minutes afterward, used her very words, unconscious that he did so. Another change was marked in him, of which he was also ignorant. Traveling with Nathan, he did not use the arrogant tone habitual to him before he married. It was impossible to feel in the same way to chattel whom you could trade for a mare and filly, and the man who would probably poll his vote with you at the next election. Nat was keenly conscious of the difference. Upon one or two occasions Garrick even gave him, in a lordly way, hints of the necessity of a future conservative policy in the country, to which the mulatto listened submissively, neither understanding nor believing a word. Randolph's face lowered into its habitual gloom as they retraced their steps. His senses had perhaps grown morbid, but he began to find on every black face he met, a curious likeness to the poor old wretch whom he sought. Was it the wrong that had been done to him which was stamped on them all, and reproached him from their eyes? Nathan came up to them as they reached the porch steps. "No trace of the old man's trail, my poor fellow?" said Ringold, kindly. "No, suh," shaking his head. "'Pears as if we cullored people's little account in de world. Dar's sech a light trail lef' when we'se gone." "There's a range of plantations," said Ringold, turning to Randolph, "on the other side of the river where the people are fairly paid, I hear. There's a night-school somewhere there, where it's not unlikely you'd get word of him. We will have some supper, and ride over." Randolph assented, and after nightfall they rode down to the ford a crossed, Nathan trotting on behind. The night was dark. When they came within sight of the shed where the school was held, the red light from its frameless windows and doors streamed across the fields. "I think that ar's a curious sight," said Ringold, nodding up to the shed. "It's one I didn't expect to see among Gregory field-hands, that's a fact. Let's get off the horses and walk up." Outside of the shed, groups of half-grown negro boys were lounging,964 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. asleep or awake; but the interior was crammed with field-hands, men and women, many of them gray-headed and decrepid. Each of them held a bit of tallow candle, and by its light was peering forward at a blackboard, on which the alphabet and a few simple words were written ; they spelled these after the teacher in a sort of droning song, their foreheads knit, and eyes set earnestly. The two men stood watching at the window until the teacher perceived them, and at a pause in the lesson, joined them. He was a thin, anxious-looking young man, and held by the hand a little girl dressed in a queer slip of jeans, fastened with horn buttons, such as a man would be apt to fashion. "I think I can gain some information of the man you want," he said, "after the lesson is over, however. The candles burning are a loss to my pupils," with a faint smile. "Have you much difficulty in inducing them to come?" "I have to turn them away, literally, by the hundred. They come here after their day's work, and save part of their scanty wages to pay me. I have schools every night on different plantations." "I thought it was a work of charity on your part," sneered Randolph. The man's hollow cheek flushed. "I wish it were. But I cannot give my time for nothing. I must live." "I wouldn't have said that to Forbes," said Ringold, taking a chew of tobacco as the master turned away. "His wife died a month or two ago, and left him with some disease that had had him down for years, and that little gal. He's just begun to crawl about now—does odd jobs in daytime, and teaches the niggers at night. He was always set agin slavery, Forbes was." Garrick looked at the child, and the man who was trying to be father and mother to her, and almost forgave him his unmanly work of teaching negros. "How do you succeed?" he said, kindly, when the lesson was over, and the master, still holding the child by the hand, came to them. "There's not much to be done with the present generation. They're dull, dull! Though it's pitiful to see their desperate efforts to comprehend and remember. I have old men and women of eighty trying to learn. Now, the little ones, on the contrary, are curiously quick and pert; but they're all alike—hungry for knowledge. It's like an epidemic among them, They've got the idea it's the thing that will bring them to a level with the whites." Randolph winced. He patted the child's head by way of diversion. Forbes took her up, his eyes kindling. "Yes, she's a good little girl —Janey. Say your verse for the gentleman, Janey;" and when Garrick praised her, and noticed the delicate contour of her freckled little hand, he colored with the pleasure like a woman. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT 965 "I have sent for a negro who knows all new comers in the neighborhood. He can tell us if your man—Here he is," as a stalwart mulatto swaggered in. "'Pears as if dat was de 'scription of ole Dad from Kentucky," after he had listened to Randolph. "He's bin hyur since Spring. Ise'll carry him to ye. He's no notion of dyin'," in answer to some stammered question of Nathan's. "He's tough." Nathan, who had waited patiently during the last hour, moved nervously from place to place after the man was gone, his limbs jerking, his lips trembling uncontrollably. He drew Randolph aside. "Suh, dat is my father he is gone to fetch: dat is all de kin left me. Kin I go out to meet him?" "Surely. I will go with you." ========================================== STOPPED EDITING HERE They crossed the field, and seeing two figures approaching, stopped in the road beyond. The moon was up, and shone full in their faces. It was old Hugh, tougher and weather-beaten, the clothes in rags, but the gray wool and broad, white collar framed the same shrewd, watchful face. He stopped short when he saw Randolph, with a glance of terror and suspicion. "Thank God, he is not dead," thought Garrick. "I came to look for you, Hugh," loudly, "to bring you home again." The negro was silent for a moment; then every trace of suspicion vanished from his shining face. He held out his shaking hands. "Den it wan’t by your will I was took away? I tought you couldn’t do it. I tought you couldn’t!" Garrick did not speak, but drew aside, leaving Nathan standing in front of his father. “"Who am dat?" cried the old man shrilly, after a quick, keen scrutiny. "He has de look ob my ole woman-- dead forty years ago.” Nathan took his hand without speaking. "It is one of the sons you lost—Nathan, Hugh," said Randolph. The old negro scanned the meek, little, bald-headed man, then slowly drew away his hand. "It was a little lad I lost--a little lad. Hyur’s an ole man dat you fetch me." No one spoke. "He wur a little live chap, about your age, suh," looking at the sinewy young Kentuckian from head to foot, his eye pausing on the finely-accented features. "He’d right to be like you. What’ve you done to make him into dis ole man dat you fetch me?" "But I am Nathan!" smiling feebly. "God bless you, den, my son," slowly, turning dryly away, however, and hobbling up the hill alone. Presently he put out his hand and rested it on Nathan’s shoulder, smiling. "I'se a cross-grained old chap ; but I’se berry glad to find you, Nathan. Whar am yer brother?” “ We’ll find him soon,” evasively. 61966 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT "He'll be an ole man, too," he mumbled. "Ise'll neber find my little lads. Dey's gone, dey's gone." That night Hugh came shuffling into the tavern parlor, where Randolph sat smoking. "You heerd from Mars Bob Strebling 'bout dat paper, suh?" tugging at his wool, and then standing quietly before him. "What paper?" pushing down the ashes of his pipe. "De will; Mars Coyle's will. I gib it to a cunnel in Mars Bob's division, to deliber it to him, and I heerd he done it." "The will? You had my father's will? You sent it to Robert Strebling?" "I tought-" looking Randolph straight in the eyes, "if you meant as you said, to make all plain to Mars Strebling, de will wur needed dar. I tought, in any case, it wur needed." "It was all made plain. When did you send it?" "Las' Summer, suh, when I found for shore dat I would neber see de ole place no more. You'll forgib me, M's Garrick," with a childish smile; "but I tought you'd meant to sell me inter Georgy. It warn't fair to you." "Well, good night, Hugh," slipping money into his hand. He sat looking steadily into the empty grate, forgetting to relight his pipe. For a year, then, these God-forsaken Rebels and scoundrels- Streblings, father and son- had held a legal tenure on his property, and from sheer generosity had forborne to touch it? In that year he had been defrauding them of it. He rose at last, and crept off to bed, a chill of meanness and shame pervading every atom of his large , handsome body. He wished he could slough off the old Garrick Randolph, and be born again a hard-worked, honest man. He hoped to God that it was from his mother's pure brain and soul Joe had drawn his life. "The Burley blood is clean," muttered Garrick Randolph as he laid down-not to sleep. An incident occurred next morning hastened his departure North. Ringold came in while he was at breakfast. "Here's another cussed unpleasantness! Forbes, you know, the little gal's father? Well, they've done for Forbes." "Done for him? What do you mean?" "Your jaws 'ud hardly turn so white if you'd been here through the war, Mr. Randolph. Come out, and you'll see what I mean." He went to the door and beckoned some men to stop who were passing, carrying someting on a stretcher; and then taking off the sheet from it, showed beneath the thin, anxious face of the poor teacher, a little paler than usual, with the eyes shut, and a dark round spot on one temple. "Shot dead." "Phil Tarr's mark," said one of the bearers, pointing to the WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 967 wound. "There was paper pinned to his breast with Tarr's name signed to it." Randolph stooped over the dead face; there was the same boyish, smile on it with which the master had talked of his little girl the night before. The child herself stood patiently now by the board, holding one limp, cold hand in hers, her dress uncared for, and hair untended, as Ringold noted, touching her head, and adding, "He used to be astir early to have her washed and dressed, same as her mother done." "Yon's Tarr," he muttered afterward, nodding to a man on horseback, riding leisurely past, glancing askance at the body. "Why is he not arrested?" said Garrick. The overseer shrugged his shoulders. "Forbes was a Union man, and nigger friend. It 'ud be nigh as hard to get justice agen his murderer as if he'd only been a nigger." "Good God! Why, sir, my fear has been that we were pampering the negro with too much care," said Randolph, wiping his pale lips. "May be so among the radical. But your own State of Kentucky reports, officially, over five hundred negroes outrages and murdered in a year, and no steps taken to avenge them." "If-if no other provision is found for child," said Garrick, hastily, "I'll take her home with me." "What will your wife say to that, Colonel?" "My wife's hearth and heart would take in all the orphans of the world," said Garrick, turning away. CHAPTER XLII. OLD WRONGS RIGHTED. Joe Burley- Captain Burley now- had received his discharge. He stood on the stoop of a tavern just outside of Memphis, his knapsack and valise on the floor beside him. "You're off for home, Burley, eh? Well, God speed you! Come to Cleveland when you can; you'll find a chair by the fire always ready for you, and a welcome. I'm going back into trade. It'll do us both good to fight our battles over again." "Saddee, Captain Knox. Yes, I'm off for home. I've sent my sword by a safe conveyance. I was afeerd to trust it with my luggage. There's a little chap at home that'll prize that sword when he's old enough." "Your grandson? You were as mum and quiet about that boy, Joe, as if you'd been a young man, and he were your bride." "So? so?" growing red. "Well, you see, I'm old, Captain, and a great pleasure like that let into my life was suddent and onex968 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. pected. He knows me a'ready, his mother says, through my picture. He's a remarkable for'ard child; only about two years old, now." "You are going direct to Philadelphia?" "No, I've got a commission from Rossline (that's the boy's mother) to fetch Nat's wife and child with me. She wants to bring the family together." "Is there no tidings from Broderip?" asked Knox, who had taken a strong interest in the story, as Joe told it to him. Burley shook his head. "Sometimes I think of the war as like a bottomless gulf I used to read of, where the youngest and bravest was throwed in as sacrifices. But theres's none went down into the darkness of it that was worth more, to my notion, than that fiery little devil of a surgeon. I think he'll come back yet. He got cheated out of everything men care for, by his black blood. I think he'll have fame. God is just," bending his head. Knox was silent for a few moments. "You go down to Strebling place for the woman, Burley?" "Yes." Joe's face clouded, and he stopped abruptly. "I'll meet you here, then, as you return. Leave your luggage with me." Joe did not leave his pistols with his luggage; he loaded them, and took also a big hickory cane, knobbed at the end. "Perhaps that young cock-o'-the-walk that shot me in the boat will want to try another 'bout. He'll find me ready and more'n willin', "he said to Knox. Beside, he had a vague feeling that the work of his life was done, and the quiet evening was coming; so it was seemly that all old scores should be paid and done with. The score with Strebling was long and black. "I'll have the woman if he brings out the whole of his fighting posse!" he muttered again and again as he was rowed down the river through the June afternoon to the Strebling plantation. When the boat floated up into the thick bed of lilies on the shore, he stepped out, adjusted the priming of his pistols, and put them within easy reach. "Where will I find Strebling?" he asked the man who had brought him down. "You're on the old gentleman's land now," resting on his oar. Now, Burley was not at all satisfied with this mild mention of the man he came to meet. His ancient enemy being his only one, he had always made him a sort of receiver for all the gall and virulence of his nature; and, having finally wrought himself up to proper fighting heat of wrath against both father and son, would have thought it only natural to hear them popularly called slave- drivers or hell-hounds. He took out his old pocket-book to pay the man, therefore, dashed and grim. "You'll find the old Cunnel, likely, yander," pointing to a low, shed-like cottage, after he had thrust the money in his pocket. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 969 "Why, that belongs to the quarters?" "The Yanks burned the house. The niggers is gone, too." Joe startled, then added, glummer than before, "Strebling could afford to lose 'em. He was an easy liver, a man of means--Strebling was." "Well, I don't know. Most of his money was in Confederate bonds, worth nothing now; and they was free with their money always, while it lasted, both the old man and Bob. Nobody never come to them needy an' was turned away. 'Seems hard he's so put to for even his victuals in his last days." "He's a young man yet--James Strebling---compared with-- some others," glancing down at his own gaunt body with a sudden shiver. "What are you talking of his last days for?" "He's broken fast in the last year; he's ten year older than you," and, nodding, he pushed the boat out into the river, beginning to whistle as he dipped the oars. Joe turned up the slope, trampling down the flowers under foot, with a dull sense of disappointment. His eleven men in buckram had dwindled to an old, gray-headed man, already defeated; unless the hectoring son turned up, he was likely to have no fight. "And James Strebling's driven to that?" glancing at the miserable dwelling. "Humph! The wicked stand in slippery places. Well, I'm glad of it! I'm glad of it!" But his face was crestfallen and ashamed, as he came nearer and leaned on the fence about the hut, to determine what to do. Just then a light touch fell on his arm. "God bless me! Burley! Joseph Burley!" "Strebling?" For a moment Joe stood in open-mouthed, appalled doubt before the tall, lean figure, about which coarse clothes hung in wrinkled folds, and the shaking old face with its white hair and beard. But the suave, downward gesture of the hands reassured him. "I'm--I'm sorry to find you ill, Strebling," he said. "Ah--um! Yes, I'm ill. Come in," pushing open the little gate and seizing Joe's big hand cordially in his thin, white fingers. "I did n't expect to see an old friend to-day or we'd have tried to have something for dinner--it's generally, now, flitch and potatoes; we're stripped pretty bare, here. But the welcome's the same. I think it kind in you to hunt me up, Burley, very kind. Come in-- come in." "No, I'll not go in at present," thinking that it was easy to see where Ross had gained her eager, irrational hospitality. Strebling paused. "A year ago I would have entertained you in a different fashion. There's the ruins of the old homestead, yonder," pointing to a heap of charred logs and rafters. "This is the house of an old tenant of mine; she gives me a comfortable bed and a plate at the table for a trifle. I need but little; and I'll not need that long," in an undertone.970 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. "But your son?" the half healed wound giving an angry throb. Strebling turned suddenly and faced him with wide eyes and trembling lips. "You did not know that Bob - Bob-," then he stopped and, turning, walked away to the end of the enclosure. "His son was shot at Petersburg," whispered a woman who had come down from the house while they were talking. "He was brought home here and died two days after. The old man's never got over that, nor never will." Burley did not speak. He moistened his lips one or twice as he stood looking at the feeble old man, leaning motionless over the fence, and finally went up to him, standing silent beside him for a few moments. "I never had a son," he said then gently, "but I think I can understand. I've seen your boy. He was a noble looking specimen of a man, Strebling." "Yes he was," with a long hysteric breath, "nobody knew Robert but me. Nobody did him justice. Up to the last moment courageous and merry, to keep my heart up! For himself he didn't care to live when the cause was lost. His whole soul was with the stars and bars." Burley was silent. "God help him," he thought, scanning his companion. "I thought it was partly the lass of the padding and hair-dye had aged him, but he's touched with death. There's not a month's life in him." "He led his brigade at Fredericksburg," said Strebling in the same hopeless quaver. "In three reports he was signally mentioned. But what mattered that? He's dead now; all their praise won't give him back to me. He was all I had," slowly, with a vacant stare into empty space. "There's not a living creature in the world now to care whether I live or die." "Shall we go to the house?" gently. Strebling put his hands on Joe's arm and leaned heavily on it, as they walked, drawing his breath with difficulty. "It is the first time I have talked of my boy," he said brokenly. "It would be a relief if you could stay with me a day or two, Barley. But this is a poor place - a poor place." "It's not that I think of." "What's that?" nervously. "The uncocking of a pistol!" Joe's face burned. It was my tobacco box I shut. Where are your friends, Colonel Strebling?" The feeble eye wandered, "I think they're gone, they don't come nigh me. You and I were old friends, Joe. There was that trouble - but that's over and forgotten, and there's been a tie between us." At this allusion to Ross, Joe stalked on more quickly in sullen silence. But he turned by the gate. "I'll not do things by halves. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 971 I'll go into your house, James Strebling, and stay with you till to-morrow." Strebling woke at the words, into a feeble alacrity. He cheek reddened, and breath quickened, as he ushered Joe into the house, and welcomed him to the dinner of flitch and spinach with a cordial courtesy that discomfited Burley. "Ther's somethin' in blood, after all. Ther's two sides even to this man," he thought. "But ther'd be no use trying to convince Rossline of that. She's terrible strong in her prejudices - Ross is!" It so happened that Randolph's letter arrived that afternoon. Strebling read, and laid it open on the table. "I am sorry Randolph has heard of this matter, and suffers it to trouble him. An old will by which his property was ceded to me. The will was sent to Robert and me a year ago." "You mean to act on it?" with an involuntary stiffness. Strebling drew up his bent shoulders haughtily, "The Streblings have never been covetous, whatever were their vices. The will was a bit of spite work of a splenetic old man. It would hardly be in accordance with Southern notions of honor to rob a kinsman through it. My son threw it in the fire when it came. He was most anxious that cousin Garrick might never know or be annoyed by it." He sat a long time tearing the letter into fragments, his eyes vacant, his lips moving with some half-articulate words, among which Burley distinguished, now and then, the name of his son. "When would you be ready to go out yonder with me?" he whispered at last, nodding to the slope of the hill where he had told Burley Robert was buried. The woman of the house beckoned Joe out before they started. "If you could suggest any change in that grave, sir, it would be a kindness. He's worked over it for months, and now when there's not a pebble to lay, or weed to pull, he's sinking faster day by day. His mind's going as quick as his body. You have a message, perhaps, from his friends? He's like to be a heavy charge in nursing on me, and I've four children as you see." Joe left her, uneasily, and went out to see the poor old man patter miserable above the broad, large mound that covered his son. Graves were not to Joe's usual taste. He drew him away. What was to become of the poor creature? "Or, after he's dead," Joe's meditations ran on, "what kin such a half-made, gingerly bein' do out ther' in that great and dreadful silence?" The twinge of awful pity that he had for the man, led him to be patiently silent when Strebling gave another timid hint of the tie between them, and asked eagerly about Joe's home life, not naming Ross, however. "I'll live with my grandda'ter, now the war's over," Joe said, boldly, at last. "She has a boy now."972 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. "A boy?" The old man stood erect, his eye flashing proudly for a moment; then he sand back into his hopeless quiet. "You are a happy man, Burley," was all he said. Joe told his business that evening. "You will find the woman and her son on the next plantation; take them with you to-morrow. God forbid I should keep father and child apart." Burley had risen to go up to bed; he turned in the door at these words, looking at Strebling where he sat with his elbows on the table, his gray head dropped on his hands, "Father and child apart!" He saw that his wrinkled lips repeated the words, again, though making now sound. Burley came back suddenly and caught his shoulder. "You have another child than the one who is dead -" Strebling stood on his feet, put him back with one hand with a grave dignity. It is no time to call up old crimes, Joseph Burley. They have gone before me for judgment. I am but a lonely, dying old man. She is my child. There's never been a day of my life when I've not been hungry for her. Let me alone." "It was only -" "You have been a father to Rosslyn. She and her children will tend you in your old age. I'm to die without ever putting my hand upon her head. It is all just, perhaps, yet I didn't mean to be a bad man." The weak treble broke down into absolute silence. After a while he asked Burley gently to lead him up-stairs. "I am not well," he said. Joe stepped into the open hall door, looking wistfully out into the night. His deliberation ended with a ponderous nod of the head. "God forbid that I should keep father and child apart," he muttered, and, going in, wrote a telegram to Ross to meet him at Harrisburg. "I will bring a sick man to claim shelter from you." I'll not tell her who it is. Rossline's been bitter agin her father, though she's said nothin'. It's downright onchristian in Rossline accordin' to my notion. Onchristian." CHAPER XLIII. INTO THE SILENCE. FROM Pittsburg to Harrisburg, Joe was obliged to travel by easy stages. Strebling sank rapidly day by day: nothing, perhaps, but the feverish excitement of the journey kept him alive. "If I had stayed at home I would have had six feet of cold earth on my breast to-day;" he said, "but here I am, alive, and on the way to see my child. I owe this to you, Burley," with a smile and courteous little bow. His effeminate minauderies were not offensive to Joe now; they seemed only patient and gentle on a dying bed. He WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 973 was in bed in a quiet room of a hotel in Harrisburg. Joe lumbering on tip-toe about the bare little apartment, trying to give in a home-like look. The doctor whom he had summoned had gone away, after beckoning him out to the stairway to whisper a few words, which had driven the usual twinkle of dry humor from Joe's eyes. "His da'ater will be with him to-night, I expect." "I hope she may not be delayed. In case anything occurs before morning, summon me at once." Anny, her firm hand unsteady, as unusually slow in preparing him for the night, came back again and again to adjust the pillows or medicines. "You'd best take this drink in to him, Tom," she said, sitting down outside with a little sob. "You'll likely never do nothin' agin for ole Mars." "Free now, Tom, eh?" said Strebling, quizzing the boy as usual. "Ye, I'se free," with solemn, awe-struck eyes, giving him the glass, his warm, yellow hands touching the cold, ringed ones. That drink, and the kind word had all the solemnity of a sacrament to the boy. All his life afterward it would set apart to him slavery from the slaveholder. "I didn't tell him nor his mother why we brought them North," said Joe, sitting down on the bed. "Rossline desired it might be a surprise. Anny's not seen her husband these seven years." A pleased smile fitted over the feeble features, which were growing slowly, strangely sharp and wan. "A surprise, eh? That was a kindly fancy. A lady is never so graceful as when she plays the part of Providence to the wretched poor. and negroes have their feelings," looking up to Joe. "Something like the instinct of dumb brutes. Yet they have them indubitably. Yes." Joe took a reflective chew. "The trouble is in reasonin' about niggers that the races is got so mixed down ther with you that you can't draw the line exact between nigger instinct and white feelin's. Now there's no danger of amalgamation with us. the antipathy's too strong between the colors. Unfortunately it didn't exist in the South." But Strebling's eyes wandered as if the subject were of trivial import. "It will all come right, I suppose. There's a place where all things come right." Then he began pushing down the red and green coverlid. "Ask these people, Burley, for a white spread. This is unfit for a lady to see; and that cologne that Anny left on the table, it is a coarse perfume. I prefer the odor of the fresh linen to any other," adjusting the fine cambrie about his wrist, and glancing critically at his pink-tipped nails. As the evening darkened into night, however, Burley left the bedside oftener, and watched anxiously through the window train after train redden into sight, and disappear in the darkness. Near974 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. midnight, however, Strebling touched his hand. "I think there is an arrival," he said, hoarsely. "I hear a woman's voice." "I heerd nothing," said Joe, glancing doubtfully at the eager, glittering eyes. Going out, he met Ross coming into the ante-room. She caught him in her arms. She cried and laughed as she used to in the old, stormy-tempered, herb-girl days. She put his rugged face back to look at it, drew his gray hair through her hand. "So many years you've served your country," she sobbed. "But you're mine, now. I have so many! I have so many! You and Garrick and our boy. In the morning I'll show you the boy, grand-father." "Yes, the boy," stammered Joe uneasily. "You don't ask who I have brought you, Rossline?" "Who?" "Since you've had a child, did it never make you think of them whose child you were?" Ross turned on him: a woman's face now, stern and inquiring. Joe nodded assent to her mute query. She drew back from him. "All the loss of my life came from that man," she said, slowly, put-ting her hands mechanically behind her. "What would you have been worth but for the pain and loss?" savagely. "You're bitter; you're onchristian, Rossline. hear what I've got to say-" She stood silent in the shadow of the window while Joe told his story; stood silent after he had done, after he had touched her hand and said once or twice, "You'll see him, sweetheart?" The sweet, genial heart of her held a stouter and blacker skel-eton than Joe dreamed of. Strebling coughed, moaned feebly. Her kindly instinct started up to conquer the old ghost. "He needs some one! Will you go to him?" Joe made no answer. She hesitated, and then turned to the door, and, with a grim smile, Joe followed her into the room. The figure in the bed sat up-right, the hands clasped together, the filmy eyes on her face. "Rossaline's sore tried. If he claims her as his child, she'd turn from him, though it wur his dyin breath." But Strebling's courteous tact was alive, though half of his body was dead. "I am glad to see my friend Burley's granddaughter," he said. "bring a chair for the young lady, Joseph." Ross stood still, holding by the foot-board, her brown eyes on his face. "My friend Burley," he said, his eyes wandering and going back to hers, "brought me home with him. He will care for me while I remain here. But the physicians assure me that I will not cumber the ground long. Will I intrude on you, Madam?" "You will not intrude," slowly. Ross, like old Joe, did not do WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 975 things by halves. Having said so much, she went round the bed, and put her hands on his forehead. "You will not intrude, father," she said. The night passed slowly. It was a healthy, warm Summer's night. Ross, beside the bed, with the nerveless hand in hers, felt a strange lightness in heart, as though some unclean substance had been taken from her, which had been made part of her since her childhood. The world was clean and strong, as if the breath of God had freshly passed through it. Somewhere in the wide night her husband hastened to her; her baby slept; this man who had been her only enemy held her hand close as his soul trembled out into Death; the blue starlit heaven, and the loving soul of Jesus beyond, bent nearer, nearer over all. Strebling was only conscious enough, part of the time, to per-ceive the fresh wind, the shaded light, the clear tints of Ross blue dress, and hair, and eyes. Pleasant airs, out of life, fanned him to sleep. Before dawn, however, he looked about him, intelligently. "Burley!" he called, "what did the doctor call my complaint last night? They all differ-all differ. There's a pressure here," put-ting his hand to his forehead; "I cannot account for that symp-tom." Joe glanced at Rosslyn, and left the room. She wet his lips with wine. He watched her wistfully, put out his finger unseen, with a hungry affection, and touched her arm. "I fear," he said, after a while, "it is near the end, my dear?" She could not answer him. He told her presently that he never had seen a woman so tender. She was tender. if she could have put all the love that had been lacking between them into that last hour, she would have done it. When Anny came in he recognized her, and smiled, and when she was gone, took out the diamond studs he wore, and gave them to Ross. "They will provide comforts for the poor creatures." Then he paused, a quick agitation passing over his face. "I have nothing to leave. My property may some day be of value; but the State will take it- all- unless I could make a will even now?" "It is better now," said Ross gravely. She would not see the sudden heat of pleasure fade from his face. He took out his watch from under the pillow- a plain one, with the case battered by a bullet. "My dear," he said gently," "will you destroy this when I am gone? It was Robert's. I could not bear it to pass into a stran-gers hands. If there had been one of our blood who could have worn it-" A fierce struggle between pride and some nobler feeling, as he spoke, had driven the blood from her pale lips. "No," she said, at 976 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. last, "I will give to my little boy, and tell him it belonged to a brave man, father." Strebling's eyes flashed. "God bless the child!" he said. After a long while he said, looking her steadfastly in the eyes, "I think you have forgiven me. Will you kiss me, Rosslyn?" She kissed him, the tears falling hot and quick. He half raised his hand with a troubled, deprecating smile, and, with the motion incomplete, grew suddenly still, and cold. The weak spirit and weak body had parted, forever. CHAPTER XLIII. HOME. Ross brushed the last curl on her boy's forehead, as he sat by his grandfather, and then rose from her knees. "Now I am ready," she said, her cheeks red, her eyes brilliant. The house had put on its holiday dress, Aunt Laura, her lace lappets pinned back, was giving the last delighted touches to the breakfast, inside, with her satellites, Matsy and Anny, about her. Ross stood beside Joe on the porch, looking down at the clover fields, and the broad, shining creek below. If she could, by one motion of her arm, have given to ail the world their heart's desire, as she had her's that morning! It seemed only fitting to her that the July day framed her little fete in floods of golden sunshine; not because it was her boy's birthday, but she had a dim intuition that to-day the key-note was struck in her husband's life, and that of these other human souls whom she had brought about her, and the tone rang out to her triumphant and clear. She sent to summon Anny. "The train is due in half an hour; it is time to prepare her," she said to Joe, with an unsteady laugh. "You've kept your secret well, sweetheart. But there are four million of these people impatient to be helped up-and up. What signifies four?" "If we all lift a few --" nervously. "Don't damp my pleasure. Come, Anny," going down into the field. The mulatto followed, Tom close behind. She had dressed herself and him because it was Mrs. Randolph's fete-day, and worked hard to carry out her plans; but her face and step were heavy and worn out as she watched the white lady's delicate figure and radiant face before her. Rosslyn turned to her suddenly. "What brings the tears to your eyes on my holiday?" The woman hesitated. I was thinking, Missus, that God was good to you. Yer husband was coming back to you --" WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 977 "Yes, my husband is coming back to me," gently. She walked on in silence until she came to a small brick house, set in a square patch of a flower and vegetable garden, and opening the gate, went in. "It is a house which my husband will let to a man that he brings with him to-day. A good workman, I believe, with an industrious wife," as she unlocked the door. "The rent will be merely nominal for a year or two. I will find them work and good wages." Anny courtesied, seeing that some reply was expected from her. "Work and wages enough to enable them to buy the place in time, if they desire it. I would be glad if you and Tom would remain here until the man arrives, and re-arrange the furniture according to your own taste. I bought it for his wife. She is a friend of mine," "I'll do my best," said Anny, zealously, taking the key. It was a long time since she and Tom had dreamed their little dream out of a home of their own, to which "he," when he was found, would come; but the remembrance of it gave zest to this chance of happiness for strangers. The boy and she entered the cottage, while Ross, with a subdued smile, went back to the house. She walked leisurely, thinking she had yet half an hour to spare. There was no use in going to her grandfather, or the boy; they were too much taken up with each other to have a word to spare for her. She had yet her childish love of stories, and had tried every day to inveigle Joe into a corner to tell her some of his adventures, but it was always young Joe's time for a bath in the creek, or a canter on the old mule, or an expedition for eggs, or to see the cows milked. She gave up to-day in despair, and left them to their own devices. Turning up the path through the orchard, her heart throbbed and stood still, She caught sight of a tall, sinewy figure crossing the fields with a quick, elastic step, leaping the fences, whistling like a boy, calling to Aunt Laura on the porch, in his old, merry fashion, pausing at the gate to lift Friend Blanchard from her coupé with a hearty, cordial welcome. Ross stopped in the little arbor, and beckoned him to come to her. Her knees trembled, her blood ran faintly, she knew not why, and when he came and took her in eyes grew blind as she hid her face on his breast. It was in this arbor the vision of what he seemed to others, had shown itself to her long ago, But this was the husband she had loved. He had come to her at last. He kissed her wet, closed eyes. "What! crying? Oh foolish sweetheart! Because it is our boy's birthday, and mine?" Then both were silent. Soon after, the grape leaves were pushed aside, and a gray head and golden one were thrust in side by side. It was hard to tell Randolph978 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. dolph though, which was the ruddiest face, or most in love with life. His heart warmed to the old man as never before, though he had been proud of Joe's bravery and popularity this many a day. They went up on the path to the house, Garrick's hand resting on the shoulder on which the boy was seated. "I can't tell you how welcome home again you are, Burley," he repeated heartily. "Ottley will be out to-day, Ross tells me, and Conrad. We are all especially anxious to hear the truth of that affair at Shiloh-" "I'll tell you all I know, though that's little," shifting Joe to the other side. "Do you know," in an eager whisper, "this is the most remarkable little ruffian of ours? I was afeerd such a lot of women about 'ud made a milksop of him, but they couldn't, sir. They couldn't! He's got the build of a great Newfoundland dog, and the courage of one. The child's a study!" "So?" said Randolph, with an amused glance at his wife. But he liked Burley none the less for it. When the old man lifted the child down he glanced shrewdly from father to son. "I bent afeerd of Joe when his time of trial comes," he thought secretly. "He's got his mother's straightforward eyes and merciful mouth, and ther's the true honor for you!" "We'll being life afresh, Rosslyn," her husband said. "The property in Kentucky, although it remains ours, is left valueless by the war. But I've heart for work now. I'll open my laboratory to-morow. "It is hardly fair," he added, laughing. "All dramas, from the old fairy stories to the last novel, end in a glitter of gold." "Except the real ones which God orders," she said. "They oftenest end in love, plenty of hard work, and the poor at your gate." "Here are Nathan and his father at ours," he said, turning toward the road. "I came across the field to gain a moment with you alone. And this little girl-" he stopped short, remembering he had just told his wife that they were penniless, while the child, with her frightened little face and outlandish dress, shrank farther back into a corner of the fence. "I brought Janey home to live with us, Rosslyn." Ross asked not a single question, even with her eyes. She put her arms around the poor baby and kissed her. "I've often wished for just such a little girl to have for my own. I've a little white bed ready for you to sleep on, Janey," and kept the thin little hand in hers all day. Then she shook hands with Nathan and his father. "You will come in with me for a little while," she said to Hugh. Her voice trembled a little as she turned to the tired, cowed, little man beside him. "There is a place made ready for you in the cottage yonder. You have had a long journey. I hope you will find rest WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 979 there." And they all stood and watched him as he went slowly across the fields toward his home. It was a bright little room in which Anny found herself when the door closed behind her, a sort of keeping room into which the tidy kitchen opened. There was a blue and oak rag carpet on the floor, chintz-covered chairs, a shelf with books, and some simple vases with trailing, scarlet flowers, and one or two cheerful pictures on the white wall. Anny was a born housekeeper. She grew heated and eager over the little home, though she made it ready for strangers, went through the two bedrooms giving a careful glance to the strong, white sheets, the snowy boards of the floor, the shining little mirrors, then spread the table and placed on it the materials for dinner, which she found in the cupboard. It was long since she had shed a tear over her own poor plan of a home with Nathan and her boy, but this was very like that old fancy! and it had been so idle and childish in a freed slave! Nathan lay long ago dead in some pit of the battle fields. She placed the last dish on the cosy little table, then tied on her bonnet to go. Tom came in walking stiffly erect as usual, to hide his small height. "Ther's a boy among the folks that's coming here to live," he said, "I see a sled and a boxy of tools and here's them books." He passed his forefinger with a wistful look across their backs. "Kin you not read the back of one of the, sonny boy?" He shook his head, with a long breath. "Wher you going, Mammy? You look as if dar wur a ghost fur you in dis house. Hyur comes de man dat owns it!" peering eagerly out of the window. "I'll go meet him; I'll bring him in." The stooped little man outside of the door put his hand on his head. "Dar's a fine fellow! I'see come to live wid you, my little man!" "Wher's yer people?" demanded Tom. "We've bin makin ready for you all." "I'se got no people. Dar's only my ole father an' me." He stopped, passed his gaudy handkerchief over his forehead, and stood in the door looking vacantly down the road as if he had forgotten to go in. "My mother's inside," stooping to pick a dandelion ball. The man turned as if soul and body were tired alike, and, passing slowly through the little room, opened the door beyond. Tom, outside, heard a moment a low, stifled cry, and then there was a great silence. The sun set redly on Ross holiday; threw cool, broad shadows of the great walnut trees across the grassy slope in front of Nathan's little cottage, where they all had gathered. The far quiet of night brooded in the dulling, melancholy horizon, in the dark-980 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. ening woods, in the drowsy murmur of the distant water courses, a low harvest moon set its crescent in the gray west; but near at hand the crimson light flamed against the windows, the falling dew called out the fragrance of the clover-fields; the birds, whose nests were up in the walnut trees, chirped good night, and woke to chirp it again. Nathan stood beside old Joe, who had his boy asleep on his knee. The mulatto was silent, but his eyes followed Tom and his mother unceasingly, with a hunger yet unsatisfied. "Anny is your wife at last, Nathan?" said Joe. "Yes, suh. Mr. Conrad, he said dem words to-day. But dey couldn't make us nearer than we was before. Pears to me, suh," after a pause, "Tom's uncommon large for his years. His mother she was feared I'd think him sickly. Now, I tink I neber saw a boy as fine growed." Hugh, who was sitting in a great wooden chair, near the door, his gray head nodding over his usually wide, white collar, looked gravely at Tom, playing at his feet. "He's got de skill ob de fam-ily. I allays knowed he'd come back to me." "He takes him for my brother," whispered Nathan. "He don't seem to undersan de new life beginnin, nor de home, nor me, nor Anny. De little lad he lost fills up de world for him." "The Good Man is mighty tender with us old folks," said Joe. "He ginerally sends a little child to lead us softly down into the dark valley." He held the curly head closer to his breast, and was silent. "I've had a strange feelin," said Nathan, lowering his voice. "all of to-day, that before it was over my brother would come back to us." "I always thought he'd come back," said Joe, sententiously. "It's not nateral that a man with his body tingling with life like his was should go down into the darkness, and make no sign." "I tink he'll come to-night," said the mulatto, his eyes fixed on the far shadow. "He was keener to hear and see than older men. I tink, alive or dead, he'll know how some of us here missed him dis day." He turned away quickly. Rosslyn stood, with Anny, under a great willow; its trailing branches sifted the light in flickering gleams over her delicate dress and the tender beauty of her face; the homely, yellow features of the mulatto were in shadow. The two women had been talking together for a long time; there had been tears in their eyes more than once. "There can be no alms-giving from me to you," Rosslyn had said at the end. "We all owe to each other a debt, and I but try to pay it." Then she turned to the vast sweep of landscape over which the solemn shadows were slowly falling, and stood silently looking at it. "My boy has a grand inheritance," she sad at last, half to WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 981 herself. "To breath this free air is of itself a birthright for him." "Missus-?" the mulatto hesitated. Ross turned to her, attentive. "Kin you say the same of mine? I'm not ungrateful, God knows," hastily. "freedom and clo's, and a home of our own, is much. But it's not all. Forgive me. A mudder kerries her chile's life on her heart when he's a man, jes as before he was born; you know dat. I wondered what was my boy's birthright in dis country." "I understand," said Ross, gently. "Dar's power in Tom's head, Missus, and dar's bad passions in his blood, and ef dar's no work given to de one, de oder has its work ready. He must be a man or a beast, an dat soon. I tink of it night an day. I'm his mudder. Dar's four millions of his people like him; waitin for de whites to say which dey shall be- men or beasts. Waiting for the verdict, madam." Anny's jaws grew gray. "I'll speak de truf," with an effort. "De blood's different. Your chile has no slave blood in his veins; and de slave was drove, generation after generation, to lyin and thievin an lust by de whip of de master. De white man had his books and his politics, and hundreds of ways open fur workin or pleasure; de black man had only his victuals, an dances and viler ways I ken't mention. It's told on our blood. De debt de whites owes us is to give us a chance to show what stuff's in us. Your chile has every chance open to him; but dar's few schools in de country beside dem kept by de Quakers dat will admit a cullored boy or girl. Dey calls us lazy an' idle, but wher's de mechanics shop or factory open for Tom to learn a trade? What perfession is free to him? His hands is tied. His father giv' his blood free for de country," proudly. "He has a right to ask de chance for his son dat neber was gib to himself!" 'The negroes will be given a vote," confidently. "I don' see what real use to dem dat is yet," gravely, "only to make dem feel dey is men. It's edication my people needs, and ways for work. It's de fever time wid 'em now in de Souf; dey's mad for de chance to learn. Ole men an' young stretch out dere hands for de books. It won't last if de're balked now; dey'll sink back lower dan before; dey'll take to drinking and brutishness. Ef you sweept out de room and keep it empty, de seven debbils'll enter in, an de state ob date man'll be worse dan de first. De next five years is de trial day for us, an' a little help now ud do more than millions after a while." "I think," Ross hesitated, "one reason of the coolness with which the whites listen to your cry for help is, the dislike to the thoughts of intermarriage." 62982 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. "Dar's no danger of many marriages," said Anny, gravely and significantly; "an' as for mixin de blood, it's been the fault ob de whites when dat eber was done. Dar'll be less of it when cullored women is larned to respect themselves. O, Missus! dat talk of marryin is sech a fur-off shadder! But the ignorance an disgrace ob my people is no shadder!" Ottley, with Mr. Conrad, had strolled within hearing. He listened with a pitying Humph! "It's a curious," he said, "how deep and wide the feeling is among the colored people that now is their day of salvation, and the desperate, pathetic efforts the upper classes among them are making for the chance to try what stuff is in them, as she says. I heard you preach a missionary sermon last night, Conrad. I think the freedom stretching out his hands to know whether he shall be man or brute for future generations, is the most real cry for help now, to us, in the world." "The niggers in Baker Street that Margaret teaches are real enough!" muttered the old man. his conscience wrenched him as he said it. If Meg had gone out bearing the church's alms and good tidings to any heathen river or palmy plain, he would have held her as a martyr. But going down to her eight-by-ten darkey school-room, or to Georgia rice-fields-Pah! "I had a dispatch from young Markle, at Washington," said Ottley. "his regiment is discharged. I look for him here to-night." A quick change flashed over the blind man's face. "Broderip will come with him! I had a presentiment that he would be here to-day." Both men turned, involuntarily, glancing at a woman's figure sitting on the brink of the stream below. "If Broderip came to her now?" said Ottley, doubtfully. After all that he has done?" "It would avail nothing. The negro blood is between them. And yet-" "No, Markle will win her in time," Ottley broke in, hurriedly. "No woman can withstand a persistent, healthy, honest love, such as he gives her." "I do not know," absently. "It grows late," passing his hand uneasily over his sightless eyes. "I feel the wind rising. I think Broderip will come to-night. The blind have another sense than yours, and I have felt my old friend drawing nearer to me all day." "Your day is nearly over, sweetheart," said Randolph, as he came for her to bring them all into the house, whose warm, lighted doors stood hospitably open. "The dew is falling, and the sun is almost down." "I will go for Margaret," said Ottley, and then stopped sud WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 983 denly; the whistle of the train by which Markle was to arrive came through the cut in the hill. The two men stood waiting with anxious faces. "Do you see him?" said Conrad, with a breathless, hurried movement. "Is he alone? Some sign or word must come to-night from John Broderip out of the darkness, Ottley!" Ottley did not answer; he bent forward watching a shadow disentangle itself from the gathering twilight, and cross the fields in the valley below, pausing a moment, and then going direct to the place where Margaret sat. It was the spare, straight figure of the young Lieutenant, and he was alone. CHAPTER XLIV. JOHN BRODERIP. Above, an April day, as God sent it; bright with sunshine, and moist with dew: depth after depth, in the heaven, if any eye had cared to look up, unfolding their meaning of unending quiet and calm. Below, the April day, as man made it. A day, heavy with impure sights and sounds; the low, rolling masses of cannon-smoke driven across the creeping river and flattish hills by the heavier fumes and smoke of burning houses; the air throbbing dully in the crowded streets and lanes, shaken at intervals by the roar of an exploded mine; stench driving stench; flame following flame, and by their light, masses of black faces lining the streets watching the entrance of a negro regiment. There was the ordinary mixture of the absurd with the terrible; the town, with its country build of houses and ill-paved streets, seemed insignificant enough to eyes accustomed to Northern cities; it seemed hardly credible that the passage of this handful of troops through this mile of street constituted the culmination of one of the great crises of the world's history; that as the black regiment entered Richmond, every footfall made sure the freedom of a race and the perpetuity of a government. Markle, who had been detailed for the day on Gen. Weitzel's staff, sneered as his horse waded through the gutters, and choked in the stifling smoke. It was hard for the downright fellow to idealize the death struggle of an aristocratic government in these shrieking women, or the birth of a new people in the bodies of half-frightened, half-delighted negroes capering from square to square in the abandoned finery of their masters. Through the struggling mass and over their head, the yellow, sulphurous smoke eddied and rolled, and through the tumult, the timed clangor of the wind instruments sounded like the panting of an animal led captive984 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. rather than music. "It is the death wail of slavery!" said a young Ohioan, who rode abreast with Markle, his eyes kindling. "It was a wonderful stroke of poetic justice that yon black regiment should be the first to enter Richmond, and enter, too, with such grave and solemn calm. I saw one, a young officer who led the front, who seemed to me the very incarnation of his people's triumph. A thin, small mulatto, who had just been released from a Southern prison, they told me; his face was meagre, and starved, and yellow, but it had all the tragedy of his race in it. Whatever these brutes may be," nodding to the thick-lipped, credulous faces about his stirrups, "that man carried all their loss and all their triumph in his soul to-day. A shot from the sidewalk struck him down, but he bade them lift him on his horse again, and he rode in at the head of his men." Markle, telling this story in his own way to Miss Conrad, as she sat on the bank of the creek, in the evening twilight, paused her. She neither moved nor spoke. He drew himself erect as if bracing his strength and went on, faithfully as he had done before, omitting no particular. "I was used to young Petrie's enthusiasm and exaggerated talk, but this story impressed me more than usual. I thought I recognized the man. It was nearly a year since I had lost sight of Doctor Broderip. Before that we had often gone into battle side by side. He fought desperately, cool and daring as a tiger. In all the way I knew no braver man." "You need not dwell on what he is. I know all that you would say." The heat faded in Markle's face. "As soon as I could leave my post I went in search of the wounded man. I found him without difficulty. As I thought, it was Broderip. The men of his company had carried him out of the reach of the smoke and confusion to a patch of delicate green grass just beginning to color the side of the hill back of the town, and had heaped their coats to make a support for his back. He held out his hand to me with his old eager smile. 'Our work is done, done to-day, comrade,' he said. "Half a dozen big black fellows were about him, trying in a cu-riously gentle way, to make his body easier; they drew off shyly when the white men came near, but waited a few steps off, watching him anxiously. "They brought half of the company's rations for my dinner,' he said, with a quizzical, affectionate laugh, pointing to the piles of army bread and meat on a stone near him. "Farr, the surgeons, who was looking at his wound, said: 'I wish they or I could do more for you, Doctor Broderip!' The two men had been friends in the North. WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 985 "'A little water and this cool air,' he said. 'I'll need no more. But my veins are on fire. 'This blood is mine, looking up with a smile, 'will be troublesome to the last.' "Farr turned pale. 'Yes. But you will be done with it in a few hours. Thank God! there is no such thing as race yonder.' "Broderip was silent. 'In a few hours, did you say, George?' he asked, after a while. The surgeon nodded, and turned away. There was a long silence after that." Markle stopped, his eyes bent on the ground. Miss Conrad had risen as he spoke, and stood leaning against the trunk of a tree, her pale, controlled face turned to the south. He glanced at it; even in that moment his lover's eyes saw tender, womanly lines there, which he had never seen before. "She is terribly alone; she is famished with solitude," he thought, and his heart throbbed. She motioned him to go on; he began to speak again, careful, as before, lest by some word too little he might be dishonest to the honor of his rival. "I'm not a man given to fancy; but it seemed to me," he said gently, "that the air grew softer after that as it touched the face lying on the heaped up coats, and the ripple of the river louder, and the sunlight more cheery, as if Nature had loved the man, and was glad he was coming home again. One of the negroes came up, regardless of the presence of the whites, and squatting down, took one of Broderip's delicate hands in his yellow palms. The strong features of his race came out by contrast, the sensual lips, the melancholy brow. 'This man was with me in the Strebling stables,' Broderip said to us. 'Half of my life belongs to him. It seems but a little while ago since you and I were currying old Thunder, eh, Zed?' The negro choked as he tried to answer. Farr stood up with a mutter exclamation. "Broderip looked up quickly at him. 'No; they were not years wasted,' he said. "'I know what your life would have been worth to science and the world,' the other surgeon said, almost roughly. 'If it were not for this accident of birth, you would not have been here to-day, dying nameless and unknown.' "'No, I would not have been here to-day,' he said softly. 'But it was given to me to die for my people-to me!" and his pale hazel eyes grew brilliant as they never were in life, with a look before which we stood awed and silent. He looked up at Farr, presently, and said: 'I've been a happy man since I came among my own-a happy man, George; and I have lived to see the freedom of my race to-day.' Farr told me afterward, that that one thought of his race had seemed to absorb all others, the finding of that work in life had renewed the man; made him pure, strong and humble beyond belief of any who had known him in other986 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. days. To the last, his eye lighted when a black face passed before him, and maintained a keen, sorrowful scrutiny of them. I saw the same look when a group of poor whites came near. 'It was a two-edged sword, slavery,' he said, 'and cut down the master and the slave. O, the work that is needed here! and the infinite pity- infinite pity!' Once he said to Farr, 'there are latent elements of great strength in my people, if they are developed aright; they are a generous, imaginative, affectionate race, and faithful to God as they knew Him. I hoped to have done something for them. But there are others who will do the work. When the day was at the turn, he began to sink- when the sun was near its height-" She bowed with the same abstracted look in her eyes. They might have been those of a seer, he fancied. "I know the hour- I knew it when it came," speaking to himself. "We knew then that his strength was gone." So far, Markle had gone on earnestly, without a break or hindrance, in his recital; but he stopped now, the blood leaving his bearded face, his voice becoming low and strenuous. "Miss Conrad, hitherto I have spoken but of my friend and yours that is dead. It is no time to speak of myself." She turned, looking at him. "Another time I will urge upon you claims with which the past has nothing to do. If I advert to them now, or if I brought them before Doctor Broderip in his last hour, it was because I felt that before Death there should be no concealments. I may have been wrong- I am a blunt man-" The shadow of a smile passed over her colorless face. "You will pardon me if this matter is dragged before you in an unseemly manner. My business to-night is but to tell you this story: my own chance for a new life can wait. But it seemed honorable to speak of it plainly to Doctor Broderip. My instincts, it may be, are not so keen as his were," "As they are," she said quietly. "Some day my friend will come to me; and with all his whims, with all his moods, as he left me. There is no such word as dead, to me." Markle looked at her with a puzzled face for a moment, and then went on, clearing his throat. "I went to him where he lay, and stooped down, while the others drew apart. I said some words to him. They were of you, Miss Conrad. I told him that when the war was over, I would seek to make you my wife. But if, out of the old love he bore you, he had a message to send you, I would carry it faithfully. "'I know you would, Markle,' he said, and then his eyes wandered off, and rested on the distant sky line. The words I had spoken cost me great pain and difficulty, Miss Conrad. I thought if the feeling you had for him had begun to fade, his message would WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. 987 revive it. But I thought it was the right thing to do. Any right thing seemed easy to do by the side of John Broderip, dying. I repeated the words, 'I will carry it faithfully.' "'There is no need for any word to pass from me to Margaret," he said, smiling. Long afterward, however, when the thoughts in his brain came to his lips without his will, as they do in dying, he whispered your name with great tenderness, and beckoned me nearer, groping in the bosom of his shirt for this string of shells. 'Give them to her from me,' he said." Markle held out the little toy to her, his face paler than hers when he gave it. She hit it in her large, nervous hand, her eyes still turned to the South. It was noticeable that she never looked to the speaker, but listened as if some message came to her from a presence invisible to him. He spoke now with an effort. "He was greatly emaciated by his long confinement. His body looked puny enough when we laid him down on the pile of coats, being too weak to sit up longer. His eyes wandered over the pale blue sky, which was bright now with the Spring sunshine. We stood about him in silence, knowing the end was near, the poor negroes holding their breath, and watching first his face, and then ours, to know if there was any chance. Once, seeing his lips move, I bent close to listen; he was muttering incessantly of 'his people-his people.' After that, he looked up faintly, and asked the time. "Farr told him, 'Eleven. Yours is a broken day, Doctor Broderip,' he added, bitterly. "A quick smile flickered over his face; sudden of apprehension to the last. 'A broken day,' he said, faintly, 'But it is near noon, George, near noon!' and in a moment or two, stretching out his hand, he took Farr's in his own, turning his head gently on one side, and closed his eyes. "That was all." He left her for a time, thinking it dishonorable to even glance into her face. He walked along the dark, slow-dropping river, and then turned up through the fields. The windows of the little tenant house were open, and within he saw Nathan's smiling face with his wife's close beside it, both listening to some talk of Tom's, while the gray-headed old man nodded solemnly in the corner. A little farther on, the red light streamed from Ross' happy home- such a home as he hoped to make for the woman he loved. He caught a glimpse of Conrad and Ottley, but he did not go in. he was in no mood to give pleasure to old friends, he thought; he had tried to be honest and unenvious to-night, yet there was a dull uncertainty, an ache at his heart, new to it, which was different from any wound in battle.988 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT. A sudden chiming sound just then filled the air; it was only the bells upon a great wagon which old Burley, and the golden-haired little boy on his shoulder, were ringing in the stable; yet he saw Ross start up from the fireside and come to the window, with a light in her face as if she had heard prophetic music from her childhood, or from the heavenly hills Markle turned and went back to Margaret. "I am going to leave you," he said abruptly. "I came to say good-night. Some day I will come to you again." "Good-night." She detained him with her hand; the grasp was warm and frank. A sweet and gracious womanhood which he had never felt in her before, breathed from her, the content of one whose work and reward in life were sure and sufficing. "You must come to me again," she said. "I know you for all that you are, my friend." He made her no reply. Far up the road, however, in the shade of the hill, he turned, and looked down at the cheerful lights and the motionless figure sitting again by the side of the current, her hands clasped about her knees, her eyes turned to the south. He watched her until the low moon showed him the strange strength in her tender face, and the uninterpreted meanings that in these later years spoke from it. Is it work she has found to do that daily gives to her fresh breaths of life from God? Will she some day be the stronger, more loving wife and mother because she has been one of God's helpers? Or, is it that the dead speaks to her, and that she makes answer, as she will never do to his living love? The little soldier draws a long, brave breath as he turns away. Come what may, what better thing is there for a manly man to do than to share in her despised work? Broderip, in his grave yonder, has not saved his people from their balked, incomplete lives. The country which he and they have served is still silent, while they stand waiting its verdict. Does that mean that he, George Markle, in any village in America can to-day find Christ's very work to do; find His obloquy, and, in God's good time, His reward? THE END SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH, IN THE "GOOD OLD TIMES" BEFORE THE WAR. THE small Southern planter who owned a few slaves and a considerable tract of land, but acted as his own overseer, did not possess anything like the average intelligence, nor enjoy the average comforts of our Northern farmers. He was most apt to be found in the "Uplands." His house stood in the middle of a yard, badly shaded, grassless and surrounded by a poor fence. In the rear were the kitchen and a few mean negro cabins; in front the pile of "fat" pine knots, or lightwood, that served both for fuel and candles. The stranger was greeted by a pack of hounds directly proportionate in number, if not in ferocity, to the poverty of the owner, and suggesting, at the present time, the necessity of stringent dog-laws as among the first fruits of Reconstruction. While these sheep-devouring vagrants are permitted to live, the injunction, "Be ye clothed," is a mockery and delusion. The small planter's house is everywhere of the same pattern, raised a couple of feet from the ground, on blocks of wood or piles of brick, an oblong, with a wide hall in the middle, and a verandah in front, the chimneys built up outside, the windows very generally without sash or glass, but closed at night with board shutter; the rooms neither papered, plastered, nor ceiled, but the beams and "joists" everywhere visible, the whole establishment completely destitute of paint and whitewash. The furniture is scant and mean. Most of the chairs are bottomed with stretched skins. A shelf in front of the verandah holds the water-pail, which "little nigger" totes from the adjacent spring. In the Gulf States there are no cellars, and the cisterns, if any are used, are generally above ground. Under the latter are often little receptacles for articles which it is desirable to keep cool. The clothing is composed largely of homespun, colored with "dyes" from the neighboring woods, of substantial texture, and often neat in appearance. The rough table, frequently bare, and too often covered with a cloth looking as if the swine might have been driven over it on their way to Gennesareth, is spread with food not lacking in quantity, but of such kind and quality as account in good measure for that physical type peculiar to the South, of which the lank form and pallid face are the chief characteristics. The ordinary corn bread or hoe-cake is composed of meal, salt and water, frequently baked in the ashes; the extraordinary "light bread" consists uniforms of hot, heavy and indigestible biscuits; the butter is pale and frothy; the coffee is wretched, usually taken without milk, and sometimes in the backwoods the guest is asked whether he uses "long sweetening" or990 SMALLER PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. "short sweetening" (molasses or sugar). They fry the "inevitable" salt fat port - that abounding curse of American civilization - a dish so abominable that even the impostor Mohammed denied it to his followers, and which would certainly have been interdicted to Christians had it been supposed they would ever relapse so far into barbarism as to use it. Sometimes the planter butchers a "steer," whose flesh is apt to be placed on the table the same day, or fresh "shote," killed as it runs in the woods, is served as "wild hog," as if that pleasing fiction could add a "gamey" flavor to the dish. The cooking, on the whole, suggests the question whether a people living upon such food are morally responsible for participating in the Rebellion. The planter treats his guest with whiskey, which he himself always takes "straight." The wife is apt to do a little "snuff-dipping" in private, and is not always careful to conceal the implements and the results of that "fine art." He does all the talking: she says scarcely a word; she and the grown- up daughters look scared and bashful, and after meal-time slink away to their room, contrasting remarkably, in this respect, with the intelligent, wide-awake wives and daughters of our Northern farmers. The manners of these small planters are not what Mr. Emerson calls "the happy way of doing things." Like the "poor whites" and even the large planters, who do not have to go out to the field with the hands, their language and habits of thought show how largely the African has reacted upon the Southern mind. The few common schools, very generally called "Academies," are principally sustained by this class. Before the war their children sometimes went to school to the teacher provided by the rich planter of the neighborhood - usually a poor young man from the North, who had to do chores at home and teach "winters" in order to get an education, and whose necessities kept him silent on the subject of slavery, not to mention the influence of the new and flattering sensation of having a saddle-horse to ride, and a servant to wait upon him. This, however, was not always the case. I once knew an intensely conservative Yankee teacher, near Augusta, Georgia, who saw that I was struck by the shortness of his hair and the fact that he always wore gloves. Taking me aside one day, he told me confidentially that he had recently been "converted" in the Pickens District, South Caroline - the tar stuck closer than his principles. One of these planters, who had also been a slave-trader, when asked if he was a member of the Legislature indignantly replied, "No, sir, I'm a gentleman. In my own day I've owned a thousand different niggers." A New Orleans merchant having occasion to write one of them in the "up country" for information, enclosed a three cent stamp for the answer. The planter replied, and in a SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. 991 postscript thanked his correspondent for "that little picture of Washington." A famous hotel-keeper in Jackson, Miss., used to "call off," at the head of the dinner table, the names of the dishes in place of a printed bill of fare. When asked why he did so, he replied that formerly a great many members of the Legislature had boarded with him, and as but few of them could read, he had from necessity introduced the fashion, and afterward kept it up as a matter of habit. At a crowded hotel in Mississippi, I once saw two of these planters almost fight over sleeping together, one of them swearing that he would, the other protesting with equal "cussin'," that he should not. Just as they were getting out their revolvers, the quarrel was suddenly ended by one of them accident ally saying that he as a "Texan Ranger" and know how to use his irons. The other was a backslidden Baptist minister, who had not yet acquired a liking for the smell of gunpowder. A store-keeper a few miles from Mobile, was sued for an account which, it appeared in the evidence, he had sent the money to pay, but which the dishonest agent had failed to deliver. The jury brought in the verdict, "We agree, Mr. K - don't owe nobody nothing," a sweeping obiter dictum, relieving him not only from the debt in question, but from all other pecuniary obligations. A legal gentleman of my acquaintance in New Orleans, travelling in the back woods of Louisiana, was obliged to put up at one of the wretched taverns. Being a man of very fastidious habits, when making his toilet at the common "bowl and towel" in the bar room, he used some highly-perfumed soap from his travelling bag The landlord happening to come in and wash a few minutes afterward, detected the delicate perfume as he wiped on the same piece of cloth, and snuffing a few times in order to make sure as to its origin, indignantly called up the black servant woman and gave her a flogging for using the public towel "when they had company." During the Summer of 1866 I visited the old city of Opelousas in the Parish of St. Landry, in many respects the finest agricultural portion of Louisiana. The Freedmen's Bureau agent at Opelousas informed me that in two hundred and fifty contracts out of about six hundred approved by him between planters and freedmen, the former were unable to sign their names except by a mark. A short time previous to my arrival, a very respectable young lady had been sent up from New Orleans to teach the freedmen's school, and was boarding at the hotel where I stopped. The proprietor of the house, a loyal lady, was promptly waited upon by the chief ladies of the city and urged to send away this objectionable person if she wished to keep her own place in society. Many freedmen and loyal whites had been foully murdered in this parish since the conclusion of the war. When riding over the magnificent prairie o992 SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. Opelousas, I saw people, many miles from the steamboat landing, hauling hay which had been shipped all the way from Maine to New Orleans, purchased there at forty-five dollars per ton, and then transported between three and four hundred miles, when an enterprising Yankee, with the aid of a mower, horse-rake and patent fork, could have made money by curing hay anywhere on the prairie at five dollars per ton. I have repeatedly seen planters make hay by having their freedmen "chop off" the grass with hoes and gather it in their arms. And when I said to them that in the North we not only sow the seed, but cut, spread, rake, load and unload hay with machinery, and tread it down in the mow with a horse, the statement was laughed at as incredible. The cotton gin is, in fact, the only really modern implement adopted by the cotton planters. With that exception, they have preferred the brute labor of barbarism. Just as the old Webster's spelling-book, which went out of date in Northern schools forty years ago, is still the favorite spelling-book in the South, so the implements, tools, processes of agriculture, manners of life, habits of thought, prejudices and provincial hatreds of the people, remain very much as they were half a century ago. I once stepped off the train at some "Confedrit Cross-Roads" in West Tennessee, for dinner, and on returning, found my seat occupied by a stalwart backwoodsman, entirely at his ease, his feet projecting from the car window. To my suggestion that a person occupying so much space, should charter a Mississippi steamboat, he replied with the nonchalance of a Norse god: "I've got no use for the Mississippi river." The Southern planter had the same idea of political economy. Napoleon said that "political economy would grind France to atoms though she were of adamant," but the average Southerner regarded its laws with contempt, and scoffed at the idea of so great a country being subject to them. The planter whether he made ten bales of cotton or a thousand, could never realize that the hay crop of the North was worth more than all the cotton, sugar and rice produced in the South. The cotton appeared in the foreign exchanges, the hay did not. That was a satisfactory reason. Although it actually cost the planter five thousand five hundred dollars to raise a crop of cotton, which, finally, brought him but five thousand dollars, he was very apt to boast of an income of the latter amount - at least the result was not "misery," as in Micawber's case, so long as any factor could be found willing to make him a new loan, and take a fresh mortgage on his plantation and negroes. Though the five thousand five hundred dollars had really been advanced by Northern capitalists before a seed was put into the ground, the planter was always ready to swear, at the end of the year, that the North had been enriched and the South impoverished to the amount SMALL PLANTERS IN THE SOUTH. 993 of five thousand dollars, for the simple reason that his crop of cotton, in obedience to the laws of trade, then found its way to the New York market. To raise a crop of cotton, the first step usually was not to buy the land, to procure mules and negroes, to plough the ground, but to come down to New Orleans, and, by mortgaging the comping crop, or the plantation and negroes, borrow the money wherewith to do one, or all of these things. When you sit upon a stone some lazy afternoon in the country, listening to the chirp of a cricket and the subdued hum of insects in the air, everything seems quiet and beautiful and the senses are soothed into harmony with the repose. But turn up the stone and all at once a hideous brood of crawling and creeping things starts into life. Slavery had, likewise, only to be removed to reveal its real character. It was only after that colossus which had so long held the whole land bound by the spell of its fascination had been shaken to pieces by the tread of loyal armies, only after the light from a million loyal bayonets had been flashed into the dark places of the South, bringing out all the misty delusions and horrible deformities of slavery, as a flash of lightning at midnight or a ray of calcium light thrown into the thick darkness brings out every object in dazzling, blinding brilliancy, that men could properly appreciate what a cloud of chimeras, what a horrible brood of monsters, in the shape of prejudices and wicked passions, slavery had produced - only when the veil was torn from this imposture became apparent the delusions, the ignorance, the poverty, the wretchedness, the cruelty, the insubordination, the disloyalty and violence engendered by the institution, whose real weakness and hollowness the war has laid bare. General Sheridan never made a truer remark than when he said that in view of the litigation, disorder and violence prevalent in the South, the presence of the loyal army was needed, not so much to protect the loyal whites and the freedmen, persecuted as they were, as to protect the rebels against themselves. These statements as to the "Poor whites" and the small planters - destined under a better order of things to become thrifty laborers and farmers - are preliminary to a sketch of the great cotton planter - and real slavocrat - the once dominant element not only in the South but in the Union, and undoubtedly the most "over rated character" of this century. He belonged to a class that was utterly unable to comprehend the moral and political ideas of modern civilization, and least of all what is known as "utilitarian progress;" and the conviction dawning even in his own mind that he is "of no earthly account" in the government of this country, on account of his darling opinions and prejudices as a slaveholder, is just now a great obstacle in the way of reconstruction, and, a the same time, a hopeful sign for the future.994 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. I AM not a Spiritualist, and yet I believe that the dead do revisit these"glimpses of the moon," to overturn chairs and set tables a-dancing. This I believe because I cannot doubt my sense; but I do not accept the rapping "revelations," or credit the incredible fact that the great and good who had gone from the earth come back to to bewilder us with the absurd and contradictory verbiage which we find the literature of Spiritualism. I say this that the reader may see at the outset from what standpoint I view this subject, and how I regard the curious experiences that are recounted in this article. My attention was first attracted to the rapping phenomena when the Fox family made their first appearance in Rochester. let by curiosity, I then visited the two-story shanty that will go into history as the cradle of this "new dispensation," and there, while seated with a dozen others about a rude pine table, received my first "revelation." It was my name, my age, my residence, and the number of the watch I wore in my pocket. This was all, though I asked questions that might have called spirits from the vasty deep, and should have made them come when they were called. I went away puzzled but dissatisfied, and very naturally concluded that so long as the "raps" revealed only such trivial truths they were unworthy the investigation of any but very idle persons. For a dozen years I continued of this mind, reading now and then as Spiritualistic publication, but watching, sadly and at a distance, the rapid spread of what I regarded as the most absurd and pernicious delusion of the century. But, one day, early in the war, my attention was again attracted to this subject by a somewhat singular circumstance. I was residing at the East, but had come to New York, and was calling on a gentleman with whom I had some business relations. Our business over, the gentle man invited me to witness with him some "manifestations" that evening at the house of a lady who, he said, was the wife of a respectable physician. I declined, expressing, rather frankly, my opinion of both spirits and Spiritualism. Thereupon my acquaintance became urgent, and said, somewhat emphatically, "You must go - you are wanted by the spirits! They told me last night that you were coming to town by the City of New York, and that I must bring you to them to hear a very important personal communication." I had not mentioned the manner of my arrival, and, impressed HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. 995 with his apparently supernatural knowledge of it, I went back with him to the residence of the "medium." It was the plain brick house on the south-west corner of Fourteenth street and Sixth avenue, and, arriving shortly after dark, we were shown into a brilliantly lighted drawing room, somewhat meagrely furnished, but having a heavy mahogany table, with four feet branching from a single column, and covered by a plain woolen cloth, in the centre of the apartment. We seated ourselves near this table, and the "medium," a stout, florid-complexioned woman, rather showily clad, but having a certain air of cultivation, soon made her appearance. I was introduced to her as a gentleman from Boston, who desired to withhold his name, in order to test the knowledge of the good people on "the other side of Jordan." "Undoubtedly, they know you," she replied, quietly, taking a pencil in her hand, and seating herself at the centre-table. In a moment her arm began to move, and then she wrote, in a plain, bold hand, my name, just as it came to me from my ancestors! Grasping the paper, I looked inquiringly at my acquaintance. "I assure you," he said, answering my look, "I have not exchanged a word with her about you." I said nothing, but sat pondering the singular circumstance, when the gentleman, addressing himself to the table, said, "Fred, are you here?" Three very distinct raps replied in the affirmative. "Are you in a musical mood to-night?" The raps again replied "Yes," and, turning t me, my acquaintance said, "Fred was young and strong, and died only a week or two ago; so he has great physical power. Take out your watch and count the time - you will see something that will astonish you." I did as I was bidden, while he began to hum the "overture to Norma," and instantly, with the first note of the air, the heavy table began to move, and to hop from one foot to another, in perfect time with the music. This lasted for ten minutes by my watch, and then, for another ten minutes it danced to the livelier tune of "Yankee Doodle!" Toward the close of this singular performance, I quickly lifted the cloth, and looked under the table. Nothing was there but the impalpable air, and both lady and gentleman were three feet distant from the table. Astonished beyond measure, I said, "Explain this! What moves the table?" "The electric currents - the magnetism of the spirits, blended with ours, can produce almost any physical effect." I did not comprehend this; but, without confessing my ignorance, I said, "It is very singular; but I came to hear an important personal communication."996 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. The words were scarcely spoken when the medium's arms again began to move, and she wrote: MY DEAR SON: You shall have it. I am greatly rejoiced that you have come to meet me. your affectionate father, TURNER FALES F-. It was the full name of my father, and, apparently, in his own handwriting! He had been dead over thirty years, and I was certain that no one in New York knew him, or could guess his name; for, as may be observed, his baptismal name was composed of two family names, neither of which was common, no, perhaps, ever been applied to any individual. The effect upon me was instantaneous. An indescribable awe crept over me. The curtain between this world and the other seemed for the moment drawn aside, and I seemed to stand face to face with the invisible! And in that invisible, reaching out his hand to me, was my father - my father who for so many years had been to me only a memory and an name, but now was a living and tangible reality! Overpowered by my emotions, I sat for some moments in silence, then I faltered out, "Are you indeed my father?" The answer came: "I am indeed, my son; and I am often with you, watching over and guiding you. But he is here who is your constant guardian - who, while you were yet a little child, singled you out to aid him in the great work he is doing for humanity. In all these years he has been educating you for your work, and now the time has come to you to enter upon your mission It is a glorious mission. It will carry your name down with honor among men, and bring you joy and blessing in a long eternity." The signature and the handwriting were the same as before; but I read the communication with disappointment and incredulity. It was not what I expected from the practical, common-sense man, whom I dimly remembered as my father. Besides, I had an inborn horror of all people with a "mission," and felt conscious I did not possess a single quality that would fit me for the work of a modern reformer. However, I expressed a readiness to hear what my "spirit guide" had to say, and instantly the medium's arm began again to move over the paper. Her eyes were turned away, gazingly idly about the room, but her hand moved with a steadiness and rapidity that were astonishing. As she threw off the sheet after sheet I took them up, and attempted to decipher the writing. It was a strange sort of character, totally unlike anything I had ever seen, and all my efforts to make it out proved unavailing. The quiet smile with which the woman now and then regarded me, showed that she enjoyed my perplexity; but when she threw off the last sheet, she said, with a merry laugh: HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. 997 :He writes in this way because he does not want me to read the communication. Reverse it, and hold it up to the light - you will find it good English." I did as she suggested, and found the characters round, bold, and perfectly legible, though written "backward," and with such wonderful rapidity. I have not preserved the manuscript, but, the substance of the communication was as follows: It began by reminding me that when I was a boy of but eight years, I had read the writer's autobiography. The book, it said, had fascinated my young imagination, and its author had ever since been to me a friend and an exemplar. But his life I had tried to fashion mind, and I had regarded him with a mingled love and reverence, which I had not felt for even Christ - the best and greatest man in history. This, he said, I knew to be true, but I did not know its real reason. It was not altogether because I had read and pondered his life and writings, but because I was constantly enveloped by his atmosphere, and affected by his magnetism. We were in perfect accord. I had not ambition which was not his, no thought or aspiration in which he did not share. This was so, partly because we were born under the same planet, and would have the same destiny, but mainly, because he had for so many years thrown his will about me, and molded me for his work - not more his than mine - which was to emancipate from error and sin a world now groaning under a mountain load of ignorance and evil. To do my work he would give me thoughts of fire, and a tongue of flame; but it would cost me many and great sacrifices. it would require me to give up my wordly all, to turn my back upon my friends and my wife and children. But I should be sustained through it for he would hold up my hands, and so would all the great and good who had "gone before," but had now come back to bring upon the earth this new dispensation of light and blessing. For years, as my father had said, he had been fitting me for my great work, but in one thing I yet was lacking. That was faith, unfaltering faith in my mission, and in the help of the invisibles. That I must have, for without it I could not act; and to gain it I must, throwing aside everything else, give my days and nights to a thorough investigation of Spiritualism. Signed to the singular communication, in the bold character in which it was affixed to the Declaration of Independence, was the name of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. The message at once startled and astonished me. It showed a knowledge of my past life, and my inmost thoughts, that was not possessed by any mortal, and, therefore, could come from none but an immortal. But from what immortal? Not from Franklin, for he would not counsel me to neglect my duties to my wife and998 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. children. This in my mind, I folded the paper and said only, "He that provides not for his own is worse than an infidel." This closed the seance. I went away pondering the strange interview, and the more I pondered it, the less faith I had in the truth of the communications. They were not from Franklin, nor from any well-dispirited spirit; but they were from some disembodied intelligence who could come near enough to me to read my thoughts and learn my history. This a fact; there followed this great truth: that the spirit of man lives after death, and can return to earth and hold converse with mortals. Fully convinced of this, I decided to investigate. Doubtless, I thought, there are evil and good in that world as well as in this world. The evil have come to me, but I will seek the good, and learn from them something of the life which is to come. Impressed with the importance of the subject, I gave my mind wholly to its investigation; but I went about it coolly and deliberately, and with a full determination to accept the truth, however much it might be a variance with the popular faith, or with my own preconceived opinions. My first step was to ascertain the names of the most reliable mediums in New York and Boston; my next visit these mediums in turn, and to keep a careful record of each communication and manifestation. The investigation covered a space of about ninety days, and during it I saw and heard some wonderful things. I saw heavy tables lifted several feet from the floor, and set carefully down again; I saw light articles born about the room, as if they had wings, and then returned unhurt to their places; I saw my name come out in blood-red letters on a medium's arm, then fade away, be replaced by words of Scripture intended to encourage the believer; I saw a pen write a long communication, and a pencil trace a picture of the home of my boyhood, when neither pen nor pencil was touched by human hand or fingers; I saw a robust man raised from the floor, borne through the air, and then, for a quarter of an hour, extended horizontally along the ceiling of the apartment; and I saw words of fire come out on the walls of a room, in which was no fire, nor any light but the sunshine. These things I saw: they were strange, but no stranger than the things I heard. I heard thunder echo of a clear day, and in a quiet room; I heard a closed piano and a boxed violin play by the hour together, and voices accompany the music, when no one but a dumb "medium" and myself were in the apartment. I heard bells ring, horns blow, drums beat, and accordeons play, when no human hands touched the instruments. I heard the striking of a clock when none was in the house, and the winding of my watch when it rested untouched in my own pocket; and I heard, too, the rushing of a mighty wind that shook the whole building, when all HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. 999 within and without the house was as quiet as on the stillest day of Summer. All this I saw and heard with my senses all alert; but I could detect no human agency nor any adequate natural means of producing the phenomena. More curious, however, than any physical manifestation that I witnessed, was the singular fact that the same spirit- the pretended Franklin- came and spoke to me through every one of the twenty mediums whom I saw, and at all the seances I attended. His communications were all joined together like links in a chain, and, taken as a whole, they formed a connected discourse that could have emanated from only a single mind, and that mind subtle and powerful, with the grasp of thought and the strength of will that in men are called greatness. His theological system came out only in fragments, but I was not long in discovering it to be a species of Pantheism, somewhat sublimated and pushed beyond its logical scope; but, after all, the same old theory which makes the universe God, and God the universe; which dethrones a personal Deity, and in his place erects a blind necessity that dwells in all things; is fierce in the tiger, and gentle in the lamb; grovels in the serpent, and goes erect in man; has the measles and the whooping cough in childhood, the palsy and rheumatism in old age; and finally tumbles into the grave, not to rest there in quiet, but to come up again a cabbage or a cauliflower, and be sold in the markets at so much a head. This was his notion of God: Christ he thought a man, great and good, but still a man; taught religion when on earth by Confucius, and now, in the spheres, far below many an ancient heathen, who still worships Venus, and lives with a hundred wives in his heavenly seraglio. The soul, like the God-principle, was eternal, without beginning and without end. It had lived unnumbered lives before it was born on the earth, and it would live unnumbered lives after being born into the world to come. Of this prior and future existence we all were dimly conscious. Wordsworth had sung of it: The soul that riseth with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. And every human spirit had felt within itself those longing that are the prophecies of immortality. But the soul was not perfect. It was only the half of a pair of shears- the parts of disjointed now, but some day to be welded together in a union that would be eternal. Until the union was effected, heaven would not be gained, for heaven was only the perfect accord of congenial souls, at rest in themselves and in the universe. All things, even God himself, the spirit said, are governed by1000 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. law, or a blind necessity; and, consequently, there is no such thing as a moral accountability, or, really, any right or any wrong. Evil is only undeveloped good; sin only a lower degree of righteousness. In short, "whatever is, is right," and however low a man may sink, he is sure to rise, and to pass upward in a course of endless progression. And this system I was asked to accept on the testimony of the "raps," and to preach at the sacrifice of my friends, and my wife and children! No one will wonder that I doubted the "doctrines," and declined the mission when the evil thing was disclosed to me in all its deformity. But I did not see it all at once. It came to me, as I have said, in fragments - the true mixed with the false, the pure with the impure, and all so inextricable blended that I was, at times, utterly bewildered, and utterly unable to separate the good from the evil. That I did this at last, was owing solely to the fact that I brought every word and every doctrine to the test of the teachings of the New Testament. To detail the whole of my experiences would make this article of unreasonable length; I will therefore recount only such as stand out of most prominent in my memory. My second seance was in Boston; and then, the subject of the first interview being taken up by the pretended Franklin, I was again reminded of the sacrifices I must make in fulfilling my glorious mission in Spiritualism. "But why these sacrifices?" I asked. "Why should I be separated from my wife and children?" "Because they will only hinder your labors. Your children are only incumbrances; your wife is not your true companion. In your great work you will need all the strength you can get; and you can get real strength only from the magnetism of your true affinity. We shall bring you to her, and together you will work wonders." "Then she is living and in this region?" "Yes. You will meet her within a fortnight. She is even now looking for you; for we have already told her of your coming." The same was said to me at two following seances - which were held with other and strange mediums - and then I was informed that on my next visit to New York I should meet my "affinity." I went to that city within a few days, and there encountered the gentleman who had first introduced me to the spirits. He at once proposed that I should go with him that evening to a wonderful medium - a young lady of excellent family, who, he said, had recently come out from the Catholic church, and had already converted hundreds to Spiritualism. We went that evening. It was an elegant up-town mansion, and we were shown into a luxurious apartment, carpeted with velvet, HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. 1001 and furnished with exquisite statuary, and paintings that would have graced any gallery. Soon a young woman entered the room, who seemed a mingled dream of grace and beauty. She had large, languid eyes, a wealth of wavy brown hair, delicate Grecian features, and a complexion that was snow, in which roses were blooming. I was introduced to her by my true name; for this was not a professional medium, and anything like concealment or subterfuge could not be thought of in connection with a creature of such transparent truth and purity. My acquaintance explained that I was investigating Spiritualism, and then, after a time, pleaded an engagement, and left the mansion. We were no sooner left alone than my companion, who sat beside me on the sofa, began to nod her head and close her eyes, and then, giving one or two convulsive starts, she went into a sound slumber. It was the magnetic sleep, I did not doubt, for she soon reached out her hand and grasped mine with a gentle pressure. "How beautiful this place is," she said, resting her other hand on my shoulder. "How sweet and pure the air; how soft the light, as it comes down from yonder gossamer clouds that are gilded by the sunbeams. Let us go up this bank and enter the fairy cottage. It is our home, my beloved, our home, where our lives will ripple on like this gentle stream, singing as they go through the great, ever-singing eternity. Do not doubt, my beloved; it is no dream, it is real, more real than any earthly experience. It is given us to see, that our hearts may be strong, and our souls eager for the work which is ours to do in the world together. We will do this work, and win this reward; for "they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars, forever and ever." At the end of a short half hour her hand unclasped mine, her eyes slowly unclosed, and she sat again awake on the sofa. It did not insult her by asking if she knew what she had said. I only told her of my absent wife and my little children. I saw the beautiful women but once again, and then nearly the same scene was repeated; but every day for more than two months I was among the mediums, and at every seance, the pretended Franklin came to me, and unfolded more and more clearly his real character and intentions. I had neglected, as I have intimated, my ordinary pursuits, and given my attention wholly to this investigation. At last some of my affairs became pressing, and I was forced to drop this subject, and devote myself to some unfinished business that would not be any longer neglected. I devoted myself to this without rest or sleep for ten days and nights, and during that time underwent the severest mental labor. When it was over, I was completely prostrated in body and mind, and I determined on a few day's relaxation. Accordingly, taking the cars, I went on to New York. I ar-1002 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. rived there just before dark, and, with my carpet-bag in my hand, was walking down Broadway, when my eye fell upon the sign of a medium. I had heard of the man, but had never met him, and, acting on a sudden impulse, I decided to request a short interview. The medium, at first, gave me only casual attention; but after a few moments, he turned to where I was seated, and, addressing me by name, handed me a narrow strip of paper. On it, in the familiar back-hand, was written the following: Be alone in your room at ten to-night, and I will convince you of my truth , and of the reality of Spiritualism. B. FRANKLIN. I folded the paper, paid the fee, and left the apartment. On my way down Broadway the newsboys were calling, "A great battle— thirty thousand killed and wounded." I bought one of the papers— an Extra Tribune—and then went on to the Astor House. At supper I met an acquaintance, and we conversed together till about nine in the evening, when I went up to my apartment. It was a small room on the third floor, with a narrow bed, a broken- backed chair, and a single gas-burner that only served to make darkness the more visible. Turning the gas up as high as I could, I put my watch under my pillow, got into bed, and, as is my custom, began to read the evening paper. I was deep in the account of the battle, when suddenly a low voice, which seemed borne to my mind inwardly, said in my ear, "We are here, and ready." Absorbed in the battle, I had forgotten the "spiritual" appointment; but thus recalled to myself, I let the paper fall from my hand, and answered. "Well, who are you?" "Franklin; and with me are Bacon, and Newton, and Charlotte Bronte." "A goodly company." "Yes; and we have come to convince you of our real existence. If you have no fear, we will do so." "What would you do?" "You shall see; are you ready?" "Yes." "Then lift your right arm and right leg from the bed." I tried to do so, but could not move a muscle though I put all my will into the effort. "Now lift your left arm and left leg." I tried again, but again was unsuccessful. Then the voice said, "Are you not yet afraid?" "No; but what would you do now?" "You shall see;" and instantly I was lifted from the bed, borne a few feet through the air and laid on the floor of the apartment. Then I was told again to raise my limbs and to sit upright; and tried again to do so , but with the same result as before. THE GALAXY. AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF ENTERTAINING READING VOL. IV. MAY, 1867, TO DECEMBER, 1867. NEW YORK: W. C. & F. P. CHURCH, 39 PARK ROW. 1868.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by W. C. & F. P. Church, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. INDEX TO VOL. IV. Amazing Verses..................................................................The Editor.............................................................237 Ambition...............................................................................The Editor............................................................ 495 American Cookery.............................................................Pierre Blot........................................................... 748 American Painters..............................................................Russell Sturgis, Jr..............................................226 Among the Daisies,...........................................................lna C. Coolbrith.................................................151 A National Debt a National Blessing..........................The Editor........................................................... 496 Ancient and Modern Cookery.......................................Pierre Blot.......................................................... 863 An Old Butcher's Bill..........................................................The Editor...........................................................111 Art Criticism Reviewed......................................................C. P. Crunch........................................................ 77 Aunt Madeline’s Cross.......................................................F. L. Curtis........................................................ 550 Autumn Song.........................................................................Edmund Clarence Stedman.......................862 Bird's Song...............................................................................E. R. Sill..................................................................76 Bismarck ..................................................................................Charles Wyllys Elliott.....................................159 Boating......................................................................................D. M.....................................................................941 Bridget Durgin.......................................................................The Editor...........................................................753 Brigham Young and Mormonism...................................E. M. Tullidge.....................................................541 Burglars ...................................................................................Clifford Thompson...........................................423 Carol of Harvest for 1807.................................................Walt Whitman...................................................605 Children.....................................................................................H. T. Tuckerman...............................................307 Chromatic Aberration..........................................................B. T. Sienna.........................................................829 Concerning Kissing...............................................................By a Connoisseur.............................................806 Croquet.....................................................................................L. Clarke Davis...................................................413 Dejazet .....................................................................................Edward H. House..............................................179 Democracy..............................................................................Walt Whitman.....................................................919 De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum...............................................The Editor..............................................................882 Dream Child, The....................................................................M. E..........................................................................52 Drunken Drama, The.............................................................Olive Logan.........................................................934 Drunkenness among Englishwomen..............................The Editor.............................................................238 Evening in Spring, An.............................................................E. G.........................................................................196 Fall In Prices, Looked-for......................................................The Editor...........................................................1007 Fortune Hunting, On..............................................................W. H. Whitmore.................................................658 Fruits of the War, The.............................................................Horace Greeley...................................................364 Gentleman or no Gentleman..............................................The Editor..............................................................625 German Cotillon, The ............................................................George D. Budd..................................................145 Government by Minorities...................................................The Editor................................................................878 Grand Style of Wit...................................................................The Editor................................................................752 Grotesque Songs.....................................................................George Wakerran..................................................780 How the Spirits Tormented Me..........................................Richard Frothingham...........................................994 Interview with General Escobedo, An..............................H...................................................................................322 In the Enemy’s Lines..............................................................James Franklin Fitts................................................700 Jarves Gallery, The...................................................................Clarence Cook..........................................................493 Jean lngelow's New Volume................................................Harriet Prescott Spofford.....................................562 John..............................................................................................Bertha S. Scrantom..................................................675 Journalism as a Profession..................................................Julius Wilcox................................................................797 Kilkenny Epic............................................................................The Editor......................................................................881 Ladies of Llangollen, The.....................................................W. R. Alger.....................................................................534 Leg Business, The...................................................................Olive Logan...................................................................440 Legend of Amsanctus...........................................................W. L. Alden....................................................................152 Lessons of Experience............................................................The Editor......................................................................112 London Amusements.............................................................W. Winwood Reade...................................................396 Love’s Largess............................................................................H. H.................................................................................788 Mademoiselle.............................................................................S. F. Hopkins....................................................................65 Marriage in France and the United States.....................The Editor.......................................................................623 Matrimony and High Society...............................................The Editor.......................................................................242 Mexican Armies and Generals.............................................A. Conquest Clarke.....................................................691 Miss Aubusson..........................................................................Anna L. Johnson...........................................................295 Nebulae........................................................................................The Editor............111, 237, 367, 492, 623, 752, 878 New Light, The...........................................................................The Editor.......................................................................237 Newspaper Gossip...................................................................The Editor........................................................................492 New York and its People........................................................F. J. Ottarson....................................................................53IV INDEX TO VOL. IV. New York Union League Club and the Legislature.....The Editor.....239 Noble Authors.....The Editor.....497 Norse Love Story, A.....Richard Grant White.....191 Note and Query.....The Editor.....493 Note (A) or Two on Music.....M.A. Cary.....956 Opium and its Victims.....Alonzo Calkins.....25 Our Doctors in the Rebellion.....Fred B. Perkins.....822 Our Golden Wedding.....T. W. Parsons.....933 Our Taste for Genealogy.....The Editor.....754 Pacific Railroad, The.....W. C. Church.....482 Painless World, A.....The Editor.....626 Paris and the Parisians.....Eugene Benson.....666 Parisian English.....Edward Gould Buffum.....45 Parsons' (T. W.) Magnolia.....The Editor.....115 Peace and War.....The Editor.....111 Personal Representation.....D. G. Croly.....307 Pestalozzi in America.....C. D. Gardette.....432 Photography and Faces.....The Editor.....367 Planters and Mean Whites.....The Editor.....752 Political Reconstruction.....The Editor.....371 Poor Whites of the South.....E. B. Seabrook.....681 Popular Misrepresentations.....The Editor.....879 Portraits of Self-made Men.....The Editor.....240 Prehistoric Man.....The Editor.....880 Pumpkin Pie.....The Editor.....1005 Recamier, Another View of Madame.....C. Clark.....37 Reminiscences of Dr. Anthon.....Robert D. Nesmith.....610 Ritualism.....Morgan Dix.....285 Royal Academy, The Opening of.....Ion Perdicaris.....358 Ruskin on the Drama.....The Editor.....114 Russian America.....G. E. Pond.....104 Secret of Modern Success.....The Editor.....627 Sermon Proof.....The Editor.....878 Shakespeare, Newton and Gravity.....The Editor.....1006 Shewbread.....H. H......158 Small Planters in the South.....James O. Noyes.....989 Solitude and Democracy.....Eugene Benson.....165 Steven Lawrence, Yeoman.....Mrs. Edwards.....82, 117, 245, 373, 501, 629, 757, 885 The Good Physician.....T. W. Parsons.....805 Theodore Tilton's Poems.....The Editor.....1005 To-Day.....Eugene Benson.....815 To Ellen (with a copy of Emerson's "May Day").....T. W. Parsons.....321 Under the Daisies.....Julia Fletcher.....439 Unrecorded Incident of the War......The Editor.....879 Waiting for the Verdict.....Rebecca Harding Davis, 5, 197, 325, 445, 574, 710, 837, 957 Wayland Surprise Party.....T. W. Parsons.....112 Wearisome.....Ina C. Coolbrith.....294 Where Progress left the Gods.....Fred B. Perkins.....277 Who Invented Sewing Machines?.....471 Why we left the Homestead.....Sophie May.....405 Words and their Uses.....Richard Grant White.....99, 267, 870, 943 Zone of Calms.....H.....404 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. 1003 Astonished beyond measure, I asked: "How do you do this ? How do you get this power?" "Through our combined magnetism. It completely envelops you—so far as your body is concerned, you are wholly at our mercy." "But you cannot touch my soul." "No, that is free; the soul inherits freedom; and it never yields its birthright." "Well; if I can hear, why cannot I see you?" "You have not spirit sight, though you have spirit hearing. In you only one spiritual sense is yet open. We could make you see us, but to do so, we should have to take your soul from your body. If you are willing, we will do that." "I am willing, if you will be sure to put it back again. I have several reasons for not now wanting to leave this world." "We will not harm you; if we were disposed to, we would not be permitted.” "Then, there is something that controls you something, after all, like a personal God in the universe." No answer was given, and, in a moment, all with me was darkness. How long it lasted I do not know; but, when the light broke upon me again, I was standing on a high mountain that seemed a solitary peak, rising out of the blue ether. Below me the moon and the planets were rolling, and far away was the earth I had left, its green fields, its running streams, and ever-heaving seas all lighted up with a kind of supernatural radiance. I looked around, and in a circle near me, I saw Franklin, in his well-known coat breeches, and knee-buckles; Newton, in a great white wig; and Bacon, in the cap and gown of the High Court of Chancery. Seized with sudden awe at this august presence, I started back, and would have fled from the mountain, but Franklin grasped me by both hands, and with a merry laugh, he said: "You see, my boy, I have kept my word! Hereafter, trust in spirits and Spiritualism." “I will,” I answered, warmly, 1 wronged you with my doubts; but where is she—the Bronte?" "Here" said a soft voice at my elbow; and turning about, I saw, standing in a blaze of rosy light, a woman more beautiful than any ever pictured by mortal poet or painter. She had large, dreamy eyes, wavy brown hair, and a face of most angelic sweetness. She held out her hand lovingly to me, and as I took it, I saw that she was the same beautiful maiden whom I had seen in the up-town mansion, only now much more beautiful. "Is it possible?" I exclaimed. "Do we so soon meet in the world of shadows?" "And why not?" she said, gently. "Could you be here, and I be away? Do you not know that it was I, and not the earth1004 HOW THE SPIRITS TORMENTED ME. maiden, who told you of our fairy home beyond the delectable mountains. It is there I live, but I go to earth to hold up your hands and help you on in your great mission." This, then, was the spirit bride of whom I had been told by Franklin. I looked about for the ancient sage, but he and the others had vanished, and I was alone with the ethereal maiden. "Come, she said, "let us go to our far-off home; with your own eyes you must see the reward that awaits your faithful service." It was leagues away, but we we were there in a moment. I cannot recall the rest. I only remember a wilderness of flowers, a crowd of happy faces, and a chorus of joyous greetings, as, hand in hand, we turned up the pebbly path that led to the fairy cottage. Beyond this, I remember nothing, except that, with a sudden start, I awoke on the narrow bed, in the same room at the Astor House. The gas was burning dimly over my head, and I raised myself on my elbow to grope for the watch that I had placed under my pillow. As I did so, the newspaper slid from the bed, and fell upon the floor. It was eleven o'clock, so I had been fully an hour in the invisible regions. But had I been there? Had I moved at all since I laid my head upon the pillow? I had not; for if I had, the newspaper, which fell over my breast when I sunk asleep, would have slid from the bed, and fallen to the floor, as it just now had done! So the fairy cottage, the lovely maiden, and the hoary sages, were only "the baseless fabric of a vision." Puzzled and bewildered, I lay awake nearly all night, trying to get a solution of this strange mystery; but all I could do, I could not force my mind to any regular, or connected action. In the morning I was in a high fever, and the servant brought me a physician. By the medical man I was told that I was attacked by congestion of the brain, brought on by my recent mental work and my intense absorbtion in the investigation of Spiritualism. "It fills half our mad-houses;" he said, "give it up, or in a fortnight this will be followed by insanity." "Give it up! Tell the drunkard to give up his glass; tell the starving man to refuse his food; but do not tell the world-weary wretch who has caught a glimpse of the 'Summer land," to turn away his gaze, and look again with contented eyes on this cold and wintry earth." Thenceforward I went on warily, but I went on, and at last was rewarded with a clear and satisfactory idea of the nature and tendency of Spiritualism. These conclusions, with some further account of my painful experiences, I shall give in a second paper. RICHARD FROTHINGHAM. NEBULÆ. -THEODORE TILTON'S volume, "The Sexton's Tale and other Poems,' shows such a vein of fine poetical feeling and such a degree of poetic skill that even if he has not the genuine poetic faculty, we may be sure that if he had devoted himself to verse writing instead of the more profitable occupation of journalism, he would been the gainer in reputation, for then he would have had few rivals where now he has many. The name- poem of this volume is not, on the whole, the best in the collection; but it contains the following passage, in which, between two stanzas that tell, in language, not of striking originality, an incident- a mother's death at the birth of her child- that has been used for centuries by taletellers as a cheap and sure means of awakening sympathy, there is a fancy exquisitely beautiful, and as far we remember, quite a new presentation of a subject, all posssible illustrations of which would seem to have been long since exhausted: Ah, well! the ways of God are right: My Lady's babe was born at night: My Lady died at morning light. Sweet fragile stalk! that grew too rare The burden of its bud to bear, And broke while blossoming so fair! In one white sheet they both were dressed; The babe was placed upon her breast; And so we laid them both to rest. "Too rare" is hardly the phrase for the thought, which is worthy of the best expression; and Mr. Tilton, if he thinks it worth his while, may find other passages in his poems which will be improved by a more accurate use of language, and which, in our judgment, would repay the labor needed to make them perfect. -PUNKIN, or, properly, pumpkin pies, which are now one of the delicacies of the season, are regarded, the world over, as an American, a Yankee invention. if there is one thing to which the Yankee's right of discovery is looked upon as indisputable, it is his pumpkin pie. There is a restaurant in Paris which grounds its title to the name "Americaine," chiefly upon the preparation of two nondescript articles of food which it announces as Specialite de Buckwheat Cake and Specialite de Pumpkin Pie. It may not be, but it is probable, that in the window of this very restaurant, a card announces, "Here they spike English." Well, the Yankee's pumpkin pie is no invention of his own. It is no more the product of New England than the monstrous and peculiarly-flavored squash of which it is, or should be made. Like almost everything good that we have, pumpkin pie was brought by our forefathers from England, where, like some of those good things, it seems to have fallen into disuse and been forgotten. In a book of household art, now rare and curious, called "The Compleat Cook, Expertly prescribing the most ready wayes, whether Italian, Spanish or French, for dressing of Flesh and Fish, ordering of Sauces, or making of Pastry," and which was printed at1006 NEBULÆ. London more than two centuries ago (1665), there is this receipt, which some of our female readers at least may be glad to see: To Make a Pumpion Pye.- Take about halfe a pound of Pumpion and slice it, a handfull of Time, a little Rosemary, Parsley and Sweet Marjoram slipped off the stalks, and chop them smal; then take Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and six Cloves, and beat them; take ten Eggs and beat them; then mix them and beat them altogether, and put in as much Sugar as you think fit; then fry them like a froize; after it is fryed, let it stand till it be cold, then fill your Pye; take sliced Apples thinne round wayes, and lay a row of the Froize and layer of Apples with Currant betwixt them while your Pie is filled, and put in a good deal of sweet Butter before you close it; when the Pye is baked, take six yelks of Egs, some White wine or Vergis (i. e. verjuice), and make a Caudle of this, but not too thick; cut up the lid and put it in, stir them well together whilst (i. e. until) the Egs and Pumpions be not perceived, and so serve it up. It will be seen that this pie is a much more complicated affair than that of the present day; but such is the case with all dishes of the olden time; whether meats or confections, and all drinks. Two hundred years ago, and backward from that period, all food and medicine was very much mixed, and vexed with many spices and other seasoning. The body of the dish remained, however, the same; as in this case, in which we see that the pie really con-sisted of a custard of pumpkin and eggs poured into a crust and baked. We have improved upon this Old World affair while preserving it, as we have done in some others. -AKIN to the popular errors by which events are misconstrued, and the thoughts of eminent men are perverted, is the tendency to attribute to such men actions which they did not perform, and discoveries which they did not make, their acts and discoveries having merely had some connection more or less direct with that with which they are popularly credited. For example, there is probably not one man in a thousand, even of those who are called educated, who, if asked who discovered the attraction of gravitation, would not reply, "Newton." Hence it is that a recent letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, upon the following passage in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida has attracted so much attention. Cressida, speaking to Pandarus, says of her love for Troilus: But the strong base of building of my life Is as the very centre of the earth, Drawing all things to it. The idea she seems to have borrowed from her lover, for Troilus had previously said to her that his love is As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to centre. There is on gainsaying this: the attraction of gravitation could not be more clearly expressed; and the conclusion drawn by the Pall mall Gazette's cor-respondent, and so generally repeated and concurred in, that "it would really seem as if Shakespeare had anticipated Newton by a hundred years or so in the discovery of one of the greatest natural truths," cannot be avoided by those who have credited Newton with that discovery. It is noteworthy that these interesting passages occur in a drama, which, for its wisdom, is the most wonderful and admirable of all that Shakespeare wrote. Little read, even in the circle of Shakespeare's readers, it is yet one of the most delightful of his works, and is all of them the one that exhibits, in the most impressive and sententious style, his surpassing and all-comprehending knowledge NEBULÆ 1007 of men and things. But, notwithstanding the passages above quoted, this play does not transfer the credit of the discovery of the attraction of gravitation from Newton to Shakespeare, or bring the claims of the poet and the astronomer at all into collision. For Newton did not discover the attraction of gravitation, and never claimed the discovery, which, indeed, it would have been most absurd for him to do. That there was a power at the very centre of the earth drawing all things to it, was known centuries before Newton's time, and the knowledge is referred to by many writers who were kept not naturalists- the poet Dante among the number. Not only so, but Kepler, who lived a century before Newton and was cotemporary with Shakespeare, recognized the attraction of gravitation as a force operating mutually between the planets. Hooke and Halley, before Newton announced his discovery, declared that the heavenly bodies had a gravitation toward each other, and had even begun investigations to determine the mode of the action of this force. What was it, then, that Newton did discover, and which has made his name famous in the annals of astronomy? Simply this- the law according to which the force of the attraction of gravitation acts. He discovered that the attraction of gravitation operated not only on the earth's surface, but constantly throughout the universe, and that the same power which caused an apple to fall from the bough to the ground was operating at the same time to keep the earth in its orbit; and finally that this force of gravity, i. e. the strength of the attraction diminishes in a direct ratio with the increase of the product of the distance through which it acts multiplied into itself. he discovered, in brief, the rule of action of the attraction of gravitation, the most important discovery ever made in pure science; and one upon which all subsequence astronomical calculation is based. Of this law Shakespeare had no more knowledge than he had of that which governs the action of the electric fluid, and of which the whole scientific world is yet profoundly ignorant. -LOWER prices we are all wishing for, and most us expecting. It seems reasonable to look for a time, not far distant, when money, the present value of which is one result of special and very extraordinary causes, shall, those causes having ceased to operate, return to its former rate. When the physical force and the productive energies of the country have been restored to the condi-tion in which they were before they felt the heavy drain of civil war (and this will happen much sooner with us than with any other people having suf-fered from the same calamity), and when the Treasury note and the bank note shall be worth their promises in coin, then it would seem natural, as we should say, that money should regain its old purchasing power- that which it had before the war. This, however, will probably not be the case. We may possibly see prices somewhat lower than they are at present, but very little. If specie payments were resumed to-morrow financial derangement which would be an inevitable consequence of such a sudden variation in the value of our circulating medium of exchange; but, this once passed and it would pass rapidly, prices would rise again. The reasons for this conclusion are to be found in history. From the dark ages to the present time money has been falling in its rate of value. The advance in prices has been both gradual and sudden. And when, as a consequence of some great event, the advance has been great and sudden, the effect has not ceased with the cessation of the first cause. Thus, that dreadful pestilence,1008 NEBULÆ. the Black Death, in the thirteenth century, produced a scarcity of labor and a consequent rise in wages, which was even disproportionate to its apparent cause. But when the equilibrium of supply and demand was restored, wages and prices generally did not return to their old rate. They fell to a point little below the highest which they had reached, and then began to advance slowly. It is always thus ; and one reason is, that the consequences of any event of such moment as to produce a change in the value of money which requires a general readjustment of prices, endure until a new generation comes into active life, to whom the new prices, the new wants, and the new relations of financial matters are not new. To us who were men before the war, thirty-five cents a pound for beef, twelve dollars a month to a housemaid, and ten cents for omnibus fare seemed very large prices ; we pay our money with a constant feeling that we are submitting to an unavoidable but temporary exaction ; and we are constantly looking forward to the time when things will find what we call their natural level, and we shall have old prices again. But the boy of twelve years, before the war, is a youth of nineteen now ; and all the while that his notions of money and prices have been forming, money has had its present value. Things seem to him now to be at their natural level, and our new prices are to him the old prices. If three or four years should pass before we reach a specie currency again, his impressions will have been so deepened that a return to what we should regard as the true standard of value would seem to him little less that a financial revolution. And thus the world insensibly adapts itself to the new order of things. All this is not peculiar to us among the peoples. But added to this there is an active cause of rise in prices which operates only in America and measurably in Australia. We are receiving every year thousands of emigrants, who, while they add largely to the aggregate wealth of the country, make constantly increasing demands upon its productive power. They come here to eat meat twice a day, or once at least, when they were fortunate to get it once a week or once a month at home. They earn money as they never earned it before ; and, spending it, constantly, by increasing the demand for all products of industry, they cause prices to advance. If prices go up their wages soon follow ; and when money becomes more plenty they do not return quite to the former point, and these people, having then the difference between the old standard and the new to spend, thus help greatly to keep up and to advance prices. Native citizens are also constantly making this increased demand upon production. Every five years sees hundreds of thousands more of people whose standard of comfort and enjoyments has risen, and who have a somewhat corresponding ability to pay for their new wants. These considerations lead, at least, to grave doubts whether that time, so much talked of, when prices shall come down again, will ever arrive. A PERFECT BEAUTY! THE WEED SEWING-MACHINE. (THE MOST PERFECT SEWING-MACHINE IN THE WORLD.) Wherever it has been introduced as a competitor for public favor it has almost infallibly borne off the palm of victory. Within the past few months it has received the first prize at the Paris Exposition, and the State Fairs of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Hampshire, while County and Town Fairs have in great numbers given it their highest honors. This machine holds a high place in the public estimation on account of the simplicity of its construction, ease of operation and perfect adaptability to family use. It will perform any kind of work done on any sewing-machine, and is becoming exceedingly popular. The Independent says: "It is a most excellent machine, and richly deserves the success it is receiving." OFFICE NO. 613 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. JUST ISSUED : "Carmina Valensia," A NEW COLLECTION OF COLLEGE SONGS AND MUSIC, As sung by the Students of Yale and other Colleges, with piano-forte accompaniments, compiled and arranged by FERD. V.D. GARRETSON, of the Class of 1866, and comprising all the old popular and standard College Songs, with numerous pieces not hitherto published. The famous "Wooden Spoon Lanciers" and the "Song of the Spoon," also the celebrated "Christmas Anthem," as sung by the Beethoven Society of Yale, are included in this collection. The volume is a royal octavo, bound in extra cloth, price $1 50 ; sent to any address by mail, postage pre-paid, on receipt of price. The usual discount to the trade. TAINTOR, BROS. & CO. Publishers, 229 Broadway WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF TARRANT'S EFFERVESCENT SELTZER APERIENT? This is a question which the public has a right to ask, and it has also a right to expect a candid, straightforward and satisfactory reply. The answer shall be given fairly and squarely, from the personal testimony of thousands who have used the preparation during the last thirty years. These competent witnesses declare, over their own signatures, that the preparation will Promptly relieve indigestion, Allay the symptoms of fever, Regulate the flow of the bile, Cure every species of headache, Tranquilize the nervous system, Refresh and invigorate the weak, Promote healthful perspiration, Mitigate the pangs of rheumatism, Neutralize acid in the stomach, Cleanse and tone the bowels, Cheer the depressed spirits, Assist the failing appetite, Operate favorably on the kidneys, Purify all the anima fluids, Keep the brain cool and clear. And corrects promptly, and without necessitating any interruption of the ordinary avocations of life, all those minor complaints of the body which, when neglected, too often lead to the chronic disorders of a fatal character. Those who have tested the preparation in their own cases, or in the cases of their friends, are, of course, the best judges of its merits, and the above summary is simply a condensation of a por- tion of their testimony, covering a period of about twenty-three years. MANUFACTURED ONLY BY TARRANT & CO., 278 GREENWICH and 100 WARREN STREETS, N.Y. For sale by all Druggists. The Clergy, the Faculty, the Ladies, ALL RECOMMEND IT. The Philadelphia Sunday Times says: For invalids, convalescents, and debilitated, Hygienic Wine is a valid and efficient substitute for Port Wine, and has been adopted by U.S. Government for use in medical hospitals. HYGIENIC WINE 33 BROADWAY, N.Y. IMPORTED TONIC. Has for its base One of the Finest of Pure Wines, A Wine grown on the sunny slopes of Spain- the genuine juice of the grape in all its purity, as bestowed upon us by the beneficent Giver. NOT INTOXICATING IN THE LEAST. Will Supply a Want Greatly Felt in this Country. HYGIENIC WINE Is conscientiously recommended to LADIES as a Tonic which will soothe the nerves, renew the blood, and greatly stimulate and invigorate the system. All persons of sedate habits- ministers, lawyers, and professional men, possessing con-stitutions more delicate than others of less confining labors- those who expend a great deal of vitality in brain work- wil at once acknowledge the superiority of this restorative; for while it acts as a nervine, imparting a genial glow to the blood, it leaves behind none of the baneful influ-ences of a alcoholic preparations. It stands unrivalled as toner of the DIGESTIVE ORGANS, creating a healthy appetite; and we warrant that, upon trial, HYGIENIC WINE WILL BE FOUND TO BE THE FINEST, MOST DELICIOUS AND HEALTHFUL TONIC KNOWN. The La Fayette Journal says: We must be permitted to say that it is superior to anything of the kind we have ever before tasted. The following certificate explains itself: We, the undersigned, members of the medical Association having tested Hygienic Wine, and knowing its component parts, recommend it as a superior Tonic, and for the purposes for which it is intended.- Signed By fifty-six members. SOLD BY DRUGGISTS GENERALLY. HYGIENIC WINE CO., IMPORTERS No.33 Broadway, New York Holloway's Pills,---Flatulent or Windy Colle.--- These medicines are es-pecially recommended for relieving the oppression frequently experienced after a hearty meal- in [fact*], they are dinner pills, they assist nature in her digestive process, correct all acid, flatu-lent or bilious tendencies, and, by equalizing the circulation, prevent a flow of blood to the head. For upward of fifty years, they have been the only remedies of millions of people for dys-pepsia, biliousness, liver complaints, and all disorders of the stomach and bowels. Sold by all druggists. Grover & Baker's FIRST PREMIUM Elastic Stitch FAMILY Sewing Machines 405 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. Grover & Baker's Sewing Machines Highest Premium Points of Excellence. Beauty and Elasticity of Stitch. Perfection and Simplicity of Machinery. Using both threads direct from the spools. No fastening of seams by hand and no waste of thread. Wide range of application without change of adjustment. The seam retains its beauty and firmness after washing and ironing. Besides doing all kinds of work done by other Sewing Machines, these Machines execute the most beautiful and permanent Embroidery and ornamental work. "There could be no greater comfort in a family than a Grover & Baker Sewing Machine. I have used one for the last nine or ten years, and I think it is decidedly the best family Sewing Machine. It requires more skill to work other machines than the Grover & Baker." -Testimony of Mrs. Alice B. Whipple, wife of the Rev. Dr. Whipple, Secretary American Missionary Association. “ I have had several years' experience with a Grover & Baker Machine, which has given me great satisfaction. Its chief merit is that it makes a strong elastic stitch; very easily kept in order, and without much fatigue, which I think is a very great recommendation. I am not very familiar with any other machine, except a Wheeler & Wilson, which I have had. I think the Grover & Baker Machine is more easily managed, and less liable to get out of order. I prefer the Grover & Baker, decidedly." - Testimony of Mrs. Dr. Watts, of New York, before the Commissioner of Patents. “I find the Grover & Baker stitch will wear as long as the garments do— outwear the garment, in fact. The stitch will not break on bias seams, when stretched, as others do, and neither does it draw the work. I can use it from the thickest woollen cloth to Nansook muslin, changing nothing but the needle aud using a different size thread." - Testimony of Mrs. Dr Whiting, 4 East 24th Street, New Fork, before the Commissioner of Patents. "I like the Grover & Baker Machine, in the first place, because if I had any other I should still want a Grover & Baker, and having a Grover & Baker, it answers the purpose of all the rest. It does a greater variety of work, and it is easier to learn than any other. I know three other ladies who have sold off other machines—sold at reduced prices—in order to get a Grover & Baker, but recently, and they are very enthusiastic about their new machines."—Testimony of Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jennie June) before the Commissioner of Patents. Putnam's Magazine FOR JANUARY, 1808, Will be issued December next. It will be similar in general appearance to the former series of "PUTNAM'S MONTHLY." It will be a NATIONAL PUBLICATION, supported by the BEST WRITERS, in each department, in every section of the country. See Prospectus for the list of these Writers, with specimens of what they say--including Hon. E. M. STANTON, Ex-Sec. of War, WM. CULLEN BRYANT, Rev. Dr. BUSHNELL, GEO. WM. CURTIS, Dr. HAYES, Arctic Voyager, Gen. O. O. HOWARD, Dr. LIEBER, B. J. LOSSING, GEO. RIPLEY, HERMAN MELVILLE, BAYARD TAYLOR, Prof. MOSES COIT TYLER, Hon. D. A. WELLS, Rev. Dr. J. P. THOMPSON, Rev. HOWARD CROSBY, D.D. EVERT A. DUYCKINCK, Esq. &c., &c., a host of brilliant Writers in the departments of Light Literature, as well as of Science, Art, and History. High-toned papers on matters of NATIONAL INTEREST, POPULAR SCIENCE, INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS: sound INFORMATION and INSTRUCTION on important topics, will be specially cultivated. In the lighter articles, healthy entertainment and PURE AMUSEMENT for the family-circle will be carefully chosen from the ample resources presented by our large circle of contributors. The first and second Numbers will contain-- I. The first Chapters of an AMERICAN STORY of to-day; dramatic in interest and healthy in tone. II. THE CARPENTER; a brilliant Christmas Story, by the Author of The Ghost. III. INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES, by Mr. C. F. Briggs and Mr. Geo. Wm. Curtis. IV. THIRTEEN YEARS OF THE NATION; an Historical Retrospect. V. NATIONAL FACTS AND NATIONAL FANCIES; an important Article on the National Finances and Resources. VI. LIFE IN GREAT CITIES. The first of a Series--full of facts and instructive entertainment. VII. A NEW POEM. By the Author of Nothing to Wear. VIII. THE BEGINNING OF NEW YORK. A humorous piece of Historical Research. IX. THE JEWELS OF THE DEEP--Corals. By Prof. De Vere. X. FREDERICKSBURGH. A striking Poem of the War. XI. PAPERS BY HON. GEO. H. CALVERT, JOS. KIRKLAND, D. C. CASSERLY, and others, on Literary Topics. XII. SCIENCE, AND ITS RELATIONS TO RELIGION. A valuable paper by Rev. Dr. Bushnell. And other papers on Literature, Art, Music, and Table-Talk. Sold by every Bookseller and Newsdealer. Dealers supplied by AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, New York; WESTERN NEWS CO., Chicago; and by all their Correspondents.COLGATE & COMPANY'S TOILET SOAPS. The excellence of COLGATE & CO.'S Toilet Soap has led to their adoption by the public as the BEST in use, and consequently to their UNIVERSAL SALE by dealers in CHOICE GOODS. The merit of these Soaps consists in a nice adaptation of materials in such proportion as to produce the most BENEFICIAL EFFECTS, and prevent the unpleasant consequences resulting from the use of soaps containing EXCESS of alkali or other ingredients injurious to the skin—this being considered of the first importance. These soaps are adapted to all toilet uses, are agreeable in PERFUME, and of excellent washing properties, and are confidently recommended as the most desirable for general consumption to be found in the market. COLGATE & COMPANY, Nos. 53 and 55 John Street.STEINWAY & SONS' Grand Square and Upright PIANO-FORTES, Have taken Thirty-five First Premiums, at the Principal Fairs held in this country within the last ten years, and also were awarded a First Prize Medal at the Great International Exhibition in London, 1862, in competition with 269 Pianos from all parts of the World. That the great superiority of these instruments is now universally conceded is proven by the FACT that Messrs. Steinways' "scales, improvements, and peculiarities of construction" have been copied by the great majority of the manufacturers of both hemispheres (as closely as could be done without infringement of patent-rights), and that their instruments are used by the most eminent pianists of Europe and America, who prefer them for their own public and private use whenever accessible. Every piano is constructed with their "Patent Agraffe Arrangement" applied directly to the full Iron Frame. STEINWAY & SONS direct special attention to their newly-invented "UPRIGHT" Pianos, with their "PATENT RESONATOR" and DOUBLE Iron Frame, patented June 5.1866. This invention consists of providing the instrument (in addition to the iron frame in front of the soundboard) with an iron brace frame in the rear of it, both frames being cast in one piece, thereby imparting a solidity of construction and capacity of standing in tune never before attained in that class of instrument. The soundboard is supported between the two frames by an apparatus regulating its tension, so that the greatest possible degree of sound-producing capacity is obtained and regulated to the nicest desirable point. The great volume and exquisite quality of tone, as well as elasticity and promptness of action, of these new Upright Pianos have elicited the unqualified admiration of the musical profession and all who have heard them. STEINWAY & SONS confidently offer these beautiful instruments to the public and invite every lover of music to call and examine them. Letter from WILLIE PAPE, Court Pianist to the Royal Family of England. LONDON. ENGLAND, Feb. 4, 1866. MESSRS. STEINWAY & SONS - I am much pleased to see the rapid advances you are making, and the numerous certificates you have so deservedly obtained. Should my humble opinion be of any weight, you may add that I give my four hundredth Piano-forte recital, at Cheltenham, on the 10th of this month, since my arrival here ; that during my four annual visits to Paris, I have used the Grand Pianos of all the first European manufacturers, but have found NO INSTRUMENT EQUAL TO THE ONE I PURCHASED OF YOU. In fact, I consider one of your finest Square Pianos equal to any one of the Grand Pianos manufactured here. Truly yours, - WILLIE B. PAPE Pianist to H. R. H. the Princess of Wales. STEINWAY & SONS' PIANOS are the only American instruments exported to Europe in large numbers and actually used by the great pianists in European Concert Rooms. WAREROOMS: FIRST FLOOR OF STEINWAY HALL, 71 and 73 East 14th Street, Between Fourth Avenue and Irving Place, NEW YORK