CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM :?lie Bst'^te of Bessie Beanar PS 507.S6T" ""'""""" '-'''"'>' * "'SSiiJiiiiitera. literature :Benia 3 1924 022 006 047 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022006047 A CENTURY American Literature BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL SELECTIONS FROM A HUNDRED AUTHORS CHOSEN ANB AREANGED HUNTINGTON SMITH oXKo NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 13 AsTOK Place COPTRIGHT, 1889, By Thomas Y. Ckowbll Si Co. TTPOQEAPHT BT J. S. CnSHING & Co., BOSTOK. PREFACE. In view of that scholarly and elaborate enterprise, the Stedinan-Hutchinson Library of American Literature, and of Mr. Morris's entertaining Half Hours luitJi American Authors, to say nothing of an indefinite series of antholo- gies of one sort and another, it might seem at first glance as if the present collection were on the whole superfluous ; I hope, however, that such will not be the verdict of the great mass of readers for whose use it has been prepared. Whether we have or have not, in the strictly critical sense, an American literature, it is certain that histories of that subject have been written and that they demand a fair amount of illustration ta the form of extracts which could not, by reason of limitations of space, be introduced to any considerable extent with the current of biographical narra- tive and aesthetic comment. Such a collection of extracts must not be too voluminous, it must be representative in range, and it must give a definite conception of each writer's method and style. This want the present work undertakes to supply. It is offered, primarily, as a com- panion to all existing histories of American literature, and as such I trust it may find a welcome. But I have not, in making and arranging these selections, kept entirely to this primary object. I have sought to give, as far as possible in the space at my disposal, a bird's- eye view of the development of our native literature from IV PREFACE. Franklin, with -whom it may safely be said to have taken its rise, to the brilliant group of contemporary authors, of whom Mr. Lowell is the unquestioned leader. Any one who reads the following pages in due order will obtain, I think, in a reasonably short space of time, a conception of the intellectual growth of this country not to be had so readily in any other way. I have, moreover, tried to make each selection as far as possible complete in itself and expressive of an American idea. This last aim has of course been chiefly maintained with regard to the extracts from political writers, and the result may perhaps compensate for an occasional lack of purely literary charm. The list of authors which has been chosen includes, I believe, every name of importance during the period cov- ered by the plan of the book, and, although it might have been enlarged to some extent, the consequent additions would have been of questionable advantage. In this cen- tennial year of the republic a little humility in the things of the mind may not be an unprofitable contrast with our pride in material progress. Let us recognize and duly reverence the merits of these noble forerunners in the field of letters, but let us acknowledge, once for all, that the great majority of the writers we have thus far produced, when tested by the world's standard of excellence, fall somewhat below the level of immortal renown. " In such an attitude there can be no disgrace, and it will perhaps conduce to healthy growth in the future. Seven centuries passed over Rome before her genius ripened into eternal song ; Greece was a thousand years in developing a litera- ture ; half as long a period elapsed before the amalgama- tion of the Norman and the Saxon resulted in Chaucer and PREFACE, V his long line of illustrious successors. Shall we, although the heirs of all the ages with the spoils of ciyilization at our feet, develop a literature worthy the name in the space of six brief generations ? A literature is the record of a nation's life ; a nation must have lived long and much be- fore its deeds and its aspirations, its trials and its triumphs, are recorded for the benefit of its posterity. The first cen- tury of the republic has been one of unbounded vigor ; ideas have been brought forth not all of which have yet found a fit historian; and, meanwhile, let us be grateful that we have produced even half a dozen names that we may reasonably hope will shine on the bead-roll of Fame forever. HUNTINGTON SMITH. Dorchester, Mass., May 29, 1889. NOTE. ToK permission to employ copyrighted material in the preparation of this volume, the hearty thanks of the editor are due to many publishers. He wishes especially to ac- knowledge the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, MiiHin & Co. in allowing him to make use of extracts from upwards of a dozen prominent authors, and to express further his obli- gations to Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Messrs. Roberts Brothers, Messrs. Lee & Shepard, and Messrs. J. Stilman Smith & Co. CONTENTS. 1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). page Happiness 1 His Father 2 Poor Richard's Wisdom 3 Oil on Water 4 2. John ■Woolman (1720-1772). His Last Voyage 6 3. James Otis (1725-1783). 'IBepresentative Government 9 4. Patrick Henry (1736-1799). The Appeal to Arms 11 5. Thomas Paine (1737-1809). The Advent of Peace 13 6. George 'Washington (1732-1799). Party Spirit 15 7. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Political Tolerance 17 Good Humor 18 8. John Jay (1745-1829). The Outlook 20 9. John Trumbull (1750-1831). The British Onslaught 22 10. James Madison (1751-1836). The Republican Experiment 25 11. Alexander HamUton (1757-1804). The National Government 27 12. fisher Ames (1758-1808). National Obligations 29 Vlll CONTENTS. 13. Joel Barlow (1754-1812). page The Husking 31 Invocation to Freedom 32 14. John Marshall (1755-1835). Character of Washington 34 15. Philip Freneau (1752-1832). The Wild Honeysuckle 36 To the Memory of the Americans who fell at Eutaw 37 16. Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810). In the Cavern 38 17. ^Villiam Wirt (1772-1834). Patrick Henry's Eloquence 43 18. James Kent (1763-1847). Science and Literature 45 19. Joseph Hodman Drake (1795-1820). A Eairy Meeting 47 20. Noah "Webster (1758-1843). The Standard of Speech 49 21. WiUiam EUery Channing (1780-1842). Individual Responsibility 53 22. John Pierpont (1785-1866). My Child 57 23. Henry Clay (1777-1852). A Plea for Compromise 59 24. John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850). State Sovereignty 62 25. Daniel Webster (1782-1852). Preservation of the Union 64 26. Richard Henry WUde (1789-1847). Stanzas 68 27. Washington Irving (1783-1859). Rip Van Winkle's Return 69 28. Robert Taylor Conrad (1810-1858). On a Blind Boy 75 29. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). An Encounter with the Iroquois 76 CONTENTS. IX 30. James Gates Percival (1795-1856). paoe The Coral Grove 90 31. ■William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859). The Battle of Tlascala 92 32. Fitz-Greene HaUeck (1790-1867). On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake 102 33. Edward Everett (1794-1865). The Need of Patriotism 103 34. Edgar Allan Foe (1809-1849). Annabel Lee 106 The Haunted Palace 107 The City in the Sea 109 To 110 Torture Ill 35. Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879). The Moss supplicateth for the Poet 117 The Little Beach Bird i 119 36. George Ticknor (1791-1871). Cervantes 121 37. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). To the Fringed Gentian 123 To a Water-Fowl 124 " Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids " 125 The Planting of the Apple-Tree 126 The Third of November, 1861 128 38. John Gorham Palfrey (1796-1881). The Witchcraft Tragedy 130 39. Edward Coate Finkney (1802-1828). A Health 135 40. Rxxfus Choate (1799-1859). Private Character of Webster 137 41. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). Little Pearl in the Forest 141 The Judge's Vigil 142 The Skeptic's Doom 144 42. Richard Hildreth (1807-1865). Aboriginal America 150 X CONTENTS. 43. Nathaniel Parker WilUs (1806-1867). paoe Two Women 153 Saturday Afternoon 154 44. ■WilUam Henry Seward (1801-1872). The Source of Public Virtue 156 45. George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882). Limits of Human Power 159 46. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Individuality 162 Opportunity 163 Obedience 164 The Moral Law in Nature 165 Each and All 166 The World-Soul 167 Forerunners 171 Concord Hymn 172 Two Rivers 172 47. Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884). The Bob-o-Linkum 174 To an Autumn Rose 175 48. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Footprints of Angels 177 The Arrow and the Song 179 The Bridge 179 Sunset 181 Launching the Ship 182 Hiawatha's Wooing 184 Nature 187 49. Sylvester Judd (1813-1853). A Midwinter Walk 188 50. WUUam Gilmore Simms (1806-1870). A Sudden Hurricane 191 The Lost Pleiad 197 51. Theodore Parker (1810-1860). Degrees of Greatness 199 52. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). Solitude 203 Morning Air 204 Walden Pond 205 Spring Prospects 206 Inspiration 207 CONTENTS. XI 53. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). pase The Gettysburg Address 208 54. George Bancroft (1800- The New England Puritans 209 55. Alfred Billings Street (1811-1881). A Forest "Walk 21.3 56. Alice Gary (1820-1871). The Little House on the Hill 216 Winter and Summer '. 217 57. Phoebe Gary (1824-1871). A Prayer 219 March Crocuses 220 True Love 221 58. Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872). The Burial of the Dane 222 Alone 224 59. Henry James (1811-1882). Spiritual Emancipation 225 60. Charles Etienne Arthur Gayarre (1805- The Legend of the Date Tree 227 61. Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872). The Way-Side Spring 230 The Stranger on the Sill 231 62. Thomas Starr King (1824-1863). Sight and Insight 233 63. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- In School Days 235 Ichabod ! 236 Worship 238 Snow-Bound 240 64. Albert Pike (1809- To Ceres 242 To Spring 244 65. Robert Gharles Winthrop (1809- The Pilgrim Fathers 246 66. OUver Wendell Holmes (1809- Opinions 249 Talk 250 XU CONTENTS. PAGE Truth and Falsehood 251 The Last Leaf 252 The Chambered Nautilus .^ 253 Under the Violets 254 67. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812- Sam mends the Clock 257 Eva and Topsy 259 Romance 261 68. Jones Very (1813-1880). The Lost 264 To the Humming-Bird 264 69. ■William Hoss Wallace (1819-1881). El Amin — The Faithful 266 70. John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877). Abdication of Charles the Fifth 268 71. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882). Flogging 275 72. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878). Love returned 277 Bedouin Song 278 The Song of the Camp 280 From " The Pines " 281 73. Wendell PhUlips (1811-1884). The Duty of Scholarship 283 74. Henry "Ward Beecher (1813-1887). Strength of Self-Government 286 75. John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887). My Castle in Spain 290 76. Edwin Percy "Whipple (1819-1886). Webster and Calhoun 292 77. Byron Forcejrthe WUlson (1837-1867). The Last "Watch 294 The Estray 295 Autumn Song 295 78. David Atwood "Wasson (182.3-1887). All's Well 297 79. Christopher Pearae Cranch (1813- Written at Sorrento 300 CONTENTS. Xlll 80. Robert Trail Spenoe Lowell (1816- page Love disposed of 302 81. Theodore "Wintlirop (1828-1861). A Gallop of Three 304 82. Henry Timrod (1829-1867). The Unknown Dead 307 83. John Eaten Cooke (1830-1886). An Adventure 300 The Rose of Glengary 313 84. Helen Hunt Jackson (1831-1885). Spinning 315 Two Truths 316 Poppies on the Wheat 317 Coronation 317 85. George Arnold (1834-1865). The Matron Year 319 86. Herman Melville (1819- A Scene in the Forecastle 321 Sheridan at Cedar Creek 324 Shiloh 326 87. ■William Wetmore Story (1819- The Sad Country 327 The Rose 327 88. Thomas WiUiam Parsons (1819- Louisa's Grave 329 89. Walt -Whitman (1819- Greatness in Poetry 331 O Captain ! My Captain ! 333 The Singer in the Prison 334 For You, O Democracy 336 90. JiUia Ward Howe (1819- Battle Hymn of the Repuhlic 337 91. James Russell Lowell (1819- Dryden 339 Books and Reading 340 Snow 341 The First Snow-Fall 342 Spring comes 344 To the Dandelion 346 From " Appledore " 347 From " The Present Crisis " 349 XIV CONTENTS. 92. Edward Everett Hale (1822- page A Lesson in Patriotism 352 93. Richard Malcolm Johnston (1822- Nipped in the Bud 356 94. Donald Grant Mitchell (1822- The Country Church 361 95. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823- Spring in New England 365 96. Francis Parkman (1823- The Heroes of the Long Saut 367 97. George Henry Boker (1828- The Queen's Touch . .• 374 98. George William Curtis (1824- Pastoral "Walks 379 99. Charles Godfrey Leland (1824- Theleme' 382 100. Richard Henry Stoddard (1825- The Country Life 385 Hymn to the Sea 386 A CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATUEE. Benjamm jFranftUn, [b. Boston, Massachusetts, January 17, 1706. d. April 17, 1790.] HAPPINESS. If we reflect upon any one passion and disposition of mind abstract from virtue, y© shall soon see the discon- nexion between that and true, solid happiness. It is of the very essence, for instance, of envy " f"° "^ ' -J EappmesBi to be uneasy and disquieted. Pride meets with provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion. Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety. Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us ; its appetite grows the keener by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires. The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly objects, can never fix in us a proper composure and acquies- cence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things of this world, an entire submission to the will of Provi- dence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness hereafter, can give us a true satisfactory enjoyment of our- selves. Virtue is the best guard against the many unavoid- able evils incident to us ; nothing better alleviates the weight of the af&ictions or gives a truer relish of the bless- ings of human life. Z AMERICAN LITERATURE. What is without us has not the least connexion with happiness only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends upon it. Health of body, though so far necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, is not sufficient to make us happy of itself. Happiness springs immediately from the mind; health is but to be considered as a condition or circumstance, without which this happiness cannot be tasted pure and unabated. Virtue is the best preservative of health, as it prescribes temperance and such a regulation of our passions as is most conducive to the well-being of the animal economy, so that it is at the same time the only true happiness of the mind, and the best means of preserving the health of the body. If our desires are to the things of this world, they are never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present. There is no happiness then but in a virtuous and self- approving conduct. Unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are not the actions and consequently not the happiness of a rational being. HIS FATHER. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, n log- ^^^ j^^^ ^ clear, pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools ; but his great excel- lence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 3 the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circum- stances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember ■well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice. He was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for dis- course, which might tend to improve the minds of his chil- dren. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life ; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it that to this day, if I am asked, I can scarcely tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. POOR RICHARD'S WISDOM. So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times ? We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains ; then help, hands, for I have no lands; or if I fj'^^ifjj, have, they are smartly taxed. He that hath a trade, hath an estate, and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor, as Poor Eichard says ; but then 4 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the trade must be worked at and the calling followed, or neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve, for at the workingman's house hunger looks in but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff nor the constable enter, for Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them. What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich rela- tion left you a legacy, Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shaU have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it is called to-day, for you know not how much you may be hindered to-morrow. One to-day is worth two to-morrows, as Poor Kichard says ; and fur- ther, Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day. OIL ON WATER. During our passage to Madeira, the weather being warm, and the cabin windows constantly open for the benefit of Letter to *^^ ^^■'^' *^® candles at night flared and ran very John much, which was an inconvenience. At Madeira, Pringle, -^^e got oil to burn, and with a common glass tum- bler or beaker, slung in wire, and suspended to the ceiling of the cabin, and a little wire hoop for the wick, furnished with corks to float on the oil, I made an Italian lamp, that gave us very good light all over the table. The glass at bottom contained water to about one-third of its height ; an- other third was taken up with oil ; the rest was left empty that the sides of the glass might protect the flame from the wind. There is nothing remarkable in all this; but what follows is particular. At supper, looking on the lamp, I remarked that though the surface of the oil was perfectly tranquil, and duly preserved its position and distance with regard to the brim of the glass, the water under the oil was in great commotion, rising and falling in irregular waves, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 5 "whicli continued during the whole evening. The lamp was kept burning as a watch-light all night, till the oil was spent and the water only remained. In the morning I observed that though the motion of the ship continued the same, the water was now quiet, and its surface as tranquil as that of the oil had been the evening before. At night again, when oil was put upon it, the water resumed its irregular motions, rising in high waves a;lmost to the surface of the oil, but without disturbing the smooth level of that surface. And this was repeated every day during the voyage. AMERICAN LITERATURE. Sofjn SEoolman. [b. Northampton, New Jersey, August, 1720. d. October 7, 1772.] HIS LAST VOYAGE. The second day of the sixth month. — Last evening the sear men found bottom at about seventy fathom. This morning fair wind, and pleasant : and as I sat on deck, my heart was overcome with the love of Christ, and melted into contrition before him : and in this state, the prospect of that work, to which I have felt my mind drawn when in my native land, being in some degree opened before me, I felt like a little child ; and my cries were put up to my heavenly Father for preservation, that in a humble dependence on him, my soul may be strengthened in his love, and kept inwardly waiting for his counsel. This afternoon we saw that part of England called the Lizard. Some dunghill fowls yet remained of those the passen- gers took for their sea-stores : I believe about fourteen per- ished in the storms at sea, by the waves breaking over the quarter-deck ; and a considerable number with sickness, at different times. I observed the cocks crew coming down the Delaware, and while we were near land ; but afterward, I think, I did not hear one of them crow till we came near the land in England, when they again crowed a few times. In observing their dull appearance at sea, and the pining sickness of some of them, I often remembered the Fountain of Goodness, who gave being to all creatures, and whose love extends to that of caring for the sparrows ; and believe, where the love of God is verily perfected, and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced; and a care felt in us, that we do not lessen that sweetness of JOHN WOOLMAN. T life, in the animal creation, which the great Creator intends for them under our government. The fourth day of the month. — Wet weather, high winds, and so dark that we could see but a little way. I perceived our seamen were apprehensive of danger of missing the channel; which, I understood, was narrow. In a while it grew lighter ; and they saw the land, and they knew where we were. Thus the Father of mercies was pleased to try us with the sight of dangers, and then graciously, from time to time, deliver from them : thus sparing our lives, that, in humility and reverence, we may walk before him, and put our trust in him. About noon a pilot came ofE from Dover ; where my be- loved friend Samuel Emlen went on shore, and thence to London, about seventy-two miles, by land ; but I felt easy in staying in the ship. The seventh day of the rnonth, and first of the week. — Clear morning, lay at anchor for the tide, and had a parting meeting with the ship's company, in which my heart was enlarged in a fervent concern for them, that they may come to experience salvation through Christ. — Had a head wind up the Thames ; lay sometimes at anchor ; saw many ships passing, and some at anchor near ; and had large opportu- tunity of feeling the spirit in which the poor bewildered sailors too generally live. That lamentable degeneracy, which so much prevails on the people employed on the seas, so affected my heart that I may not easily convey the feeling I have had to another. The present state of the searfaring life, in general, appears so opposite to that of a pious education, so full of corrup- tion and extreme alienation from God, so full of examples, the most dangerous to young people, that in looking toward a young generation, I feel a care for them, that they may have an education different from the present education of lads at sea ; and that all of us who are acquainted with the pure gospel spirit may lay this case to heart, may remember the lamentable corruptions which attend the conveyance O AMERICAN LITERATURE. of merchandize across the seas, and so abide in the love of Christ, that being delivered from the love of money, from the entangling expenses of a curious, delicate, luxurious life, we may learn contentment with a little, and promote the sea-faring life no further than that spirit, which leads into all truth, attends us in our proceedings. JAMES OTIS. Mmt% ©tts. [b. West Barnstable, Massachusetts, February 6, 1725. d. May 23, 1783.] REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. The first principle and great end of government being to provide for the best good of all the people, this can be done only by a supreme legislative and executive ulti- ~ j,. , , mately in the people or whole community, where of the God has placed it ; but the inconveniences, not to British say impossibility, attending the consultations and *^°''""^"' operations of a large body of people, have made it necessary to transfer the power of the whole to a few. This necessity gave rise to deputation, proxy, or a right of representation. A power of legislation, without a power of execution in the same or other hands, would be futile and vain. On the other hand, a power of execution, supreme or subordinate, without an independent legislature, would be perfect des- potism. The difficulties attending an universal congress, especially when society became large, have brought men to consent to a delegation of the power of all. The weak and the wicked have too often been found in the same interest ; and in most nations have not only brought these powers jointly into the hands of one, or some few, of their number, but made them hereditary in the families of despotic nobles and princes. The wiser and more virtuous states have always provided that the representation of the people should be numerous. Nothing but life and liberty are naturally hereditable. This has never been considered by those who have tamely given up both into the hands of a tyrannical oligarchy or despotic monarchy. The analogy between the natural or material, as it is called, and the moral world is very obvious. God himself 10 AMERICAN LITERATURE. appears to us at some times to cause the intervention or combination of a number of simple principles, though never ■when one will answer the end. Gravitation and attraction have place in the revolution of the planets, because the one would fix them to a centre, and the other would carry them off indefinitely ; so in the moral world, the first simple prin- ciple is equality and the power of the whole. This will answer in small numbers ; so will a tolerably virtuous oli- garchy or monarchy. But when the society grows in bulk, none of them will answer well singly, and none worse than absolute monarchy. It becomes necessary, therefore, as numbers increase, to have those several powers properly combined, so as from the whole to produce that harmony of government so often talked of and wished for, but too seldom found in ancient or modern states. The grand polit- ical problem in all ages has been to invent the best combi- nation or distribution of the supreme powers of legislation and execution. Those states have ever made the greatest figure, and have been most durable, in which those powers have not only been separated from each other, but placed each in more hands than one or a few. The Komans are the most shining example, but they never had a balance between the senate and the people ; and the want of this is generally agreed, by the few who know anything of the matter, to have been the cause of their fall. The British constitution, in theory and in the present administration of it, in general comes nearest the idea of perfection of any that has been reduced to practice ; and if the principles of it are adhered to, it will, according to the infallible predic- tion of Harrington, always keep the Britains uppermost in Europe till their only rival nation shall either embrace that perfect model of a commonwealth given us by that author, or come as near it as Great Britain is. Then indeed, and not till then, will that rival and our nation either be eternal confederates, or contend in greater earnest than they have ever yet done, till one of them shall sink under the power of the other, and rise no more. PATRICE HENRY. 11 ^Patrick l^mrg. [b. Studley, Virginia, May 29, 1736. d. June 6, 1799.] THE APPEAL TO ARMS. It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that syren, till she trans- g , . forms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise Conven- men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for tion of liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number ^^l«g='tss' of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal sal- vation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future, but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House ? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received ? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not your- selves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these war- like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwil- ling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love ? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation ; the last argu- ments to which kings resort. 12 AMERICAN LITERATURE. I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission ? Can gentle- men assign any other possible motive for it ? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us ; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them ? Shall we try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject ? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable ; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication ? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have supplicated ; we have pros- trated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted ; our re- monstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded ; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve in- violate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms^ and to the God of Hosts is aU that is left us ! THOMAS PAINE. 13 [b. Thetford, England, January 29, 1737. d. June 8, 1809.] THE ADVENT OF PEACE. The times that tried men's souls are over, and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished. But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety, from the tumult of war to the tranquillity of ,, , , . . 1 ,• ■ The Crisis, peace, — though sweet in contemplation, requires a gradual composure of the senses to receive it. Even calm- ness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should cease in a moment would leave us in a state rather of won- der than enjoyment; and some moments of recollection must pass before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of repose. There are but few instances in which the mind is fitted for sudden transitions ; it takes in its pleasures by reflection and comparison, and those must have time to act before the relish for new scenes is complete. In the present case, the mighty magnitude of the object, the various uncertainties of fate it has undergone, the numer- ous and complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped, the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect before us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation. To see it in our power to make a world happy, to teach mankind the art of being so, to exhibit on the theatre of the universe a character hitherto unknown, and to have, as it were, a new creation entrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly esti- mated, nor too gratefully received. In this pause then of reflection, while the storm is ceasing, and the long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let 14 AMERICAN LITERATURE. US look back on the scenes we have passed, and learn from experience what is yet to be done. Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happi- ness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the wisest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement of America corresponds with the character of the revolution. Eome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was origi- nally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But Amer- ica need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire. The remembrance then of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all am- bitions, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity ; struggling, without a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated difficulties, bravely, nay, proudly encountering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let then the world see that she can bear prosperity ; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to the bravest vir- tue in time of war. She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domes- tic life, — not under the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy, in her own land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil. In this situation may she never forget that a fair national reputa- tion is of as much importance as independence, that it pos- sesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil, that it gives a dignity which is often supe- rior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 15 ffieorge SEasJjington. [b. Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732. d. December 14, 1799.] PARTY SPIRIT. There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true ; and j^^*^° in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in govern- ments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there- will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose ; and, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigi- lance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respec- tive constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of their powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which pre- dominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different dispositions, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by 16 AMERICAN LITERATURE. others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and mod- ern, some of them in our own country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to insti- tute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any par- ticular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in a way which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation ; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. THOMAS JEFFERSON. 17 [b. Shadwell, Virginia, April 2, 1743. d. July 4, 1826.] POLITICAL TOLERANCE. DuKiNG the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely, and to speak •^''^** and to write what they think; but this being lm^^ now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the constitution, all will of course arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable ; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind ; let us restore to social inter- course that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect, that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political in- tolerance as despotic, as wicked, and as capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convul- sions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore ; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions as to meas- ures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a 18 AMERICAN LITERATURE. difEerence of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Eepublieans ; we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this govern- ment, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself ? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others ? Or, have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him ? Let history answer this question. GOOD HUMOR. I have mentioned good humor as one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquillity. It is among the most effect- ual, and its effect is so well imitated and aided, Letter to artificially, by politeness, that this also becomes dolph. ^^ acquisition of first-rate value. In truth, polite- ness is artificial good humor; it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little conveniences and preferences which will gratify them and THOMAS JEFFERSON. 19 deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration ; it IS the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expres- sions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another ! When this is in return for a rude thing said by another, it brings him to his senses, it mor- tifies and corrects him in the most salutary way, and places hjm at the feet of your good nature, in the eyes of the company. But iu stating prudential rules for our govern- ment in society, I must not omit the important one, of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants con- vincing the other by argument. I have seen many, of their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, either in solitude, or weighing within ourselves, dispassion- ately, what we hear from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. It was one of the rules which, above all others, made Doctor Franklin the most amiable of men in society, "never to contradict anybody." If he was urged to announce an opinion, he did it rather by asking questions, as if for information, or by suggesting doubts. When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine ; why should I question it ? His error does me no injury, and shall I be- come a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion ? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive him of the gratification. If he wants information, he will ask it and then I will give it in measured terms ; but if he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. 20 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 3oi)n Sag. [b. New York, New York, December 12, 1T45. d. May 17, 1829.] THE OUTLOOK. That the time has been when honest men might, without being chargeable with timidity, have doubted the success of the present revolution, we admit ; but that Circular period is past. The independence of America is Congress. "'^^^ ^^ fixed as fate, and the petulant efforts of Britain to break it down are as vain and fruitless as the raging of the waves which beat against her cliffs. Let those who are still afla.icted with these doubts consider the character and condition of our enemies. Let them re- member that we are contending against a kingdom crum- bling into pieces ; a nation without public virtue, and a people sold to and betrayed by their own representatives ; against a prince governed by his passions, and a ministry without confidence or wisdom; against armies half paid and generals half trusted ; against a government equal only to plans of plunder, conflagration, and murder — a govern- ment, by the most impious violations of the rights of relig- ion, justice, humanity, and mankind, courting the vengeance of Heaven and revolting from the protection of Providence. Against the fury of these enemies you made successful re- sistance, when single, alone, and friendless, in the days of weakness and infancy, before your hands had been taught to war or your fingers to fight. And can there be any rear son to apprehend that the Divine Disposer of human events, after having separated us from the house of bondage, and led us safe through a sea of blood towards the land of liberty and promise, will leave the work of our political redemption unfinished, and either permit us to perish in a wilderness of difSculties, or suffer us to be carried back in JOHN JAY. 21 chains to that country of oppression, from whose tyranny he hath mercifully delivered us with a stretched-out arm ? In close alliance with one of the most powerful nations in Europe, which has generously made our cause her own, in amity with many others, and enjoying the good will of all, what danger have we to fear from Britain? Instead of acquiring accessions of territory by conquest, the limits of her empire daily contract ; her iieets no longer rule the ocean, nor are her armies invincible by land. How many of her standards, wrested from the hands of her champions, are among your trophies, and have graced the triumphs of your troops ? And how great is the number of those who, sent to bind you in fetters, have become your captives, and received their lives at your hands ? In short, whoever considers that these States are daily increasing in power; that their armies have become veteran ; that their govern- ments, founded in freedom, are established; that their fertile country and their affectionate ally furnish them with ample supplies ; that the Spanish monarch, well pre- pared for war, with fleets and armies ready for combat, and a treasury overflowing with wealth, has entered the lists against Britain ; that the other European nations, often insulted by her pride, and alarmed at the strides of her ambition, have left her to her fate ; that Ireland, wearied with her oppression, is panting for liberty ; and even Scot- land displeased and uneasy at her edicts : whoever con- siders these things, instead of doubting the issue of the war, will rejoice in the glorious, the sure, and certain pros- pect of success. 22 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Soljn ErumftulL [b. Woodbury, Connecticut, April 24, 1760. d. May 12, 1831.J THE BRITISH ONSLAUGHT. [From " McFiNeAL."] But now your triumplis all are o'er ; For see, from Britain's angry shore, With deadly hosts of valor join Her Howe, her Clinton, and Burgoyne ! As comets thro' th' affrighted skies Pour baleful ruin as they rise ; As Mina, with infernal roar In conflagration sweeps the shore ; Or as Abijah White, when sent Our Marshfield friends to represent, Himself while dread array involves. Commissions, pistols, swords, resolves, In awful pomp descending down. Bore terror on the factious town : Not with less glory and affright, Parade these generals forth to fight. No more each British colonel runs Prom whizzing beetles as air-guns ; Thinks horn-bugs bullets, or, thro' fears, Muskitoes takes for musketeers ; Nor scapes, as if you'd gain'd supplies. Prom Beelzebub's whole host of flies. No bug these warlike hearts appalls ; They better know the sound of balls. I hear the din of battle bray ; The trump of horror makes its way, I see afar the sack of cities. The gallows strung with Whig committees ; JOHN TRUMBULL. 23 Your moderators triced, like vermin, And gate-posts graced with heads of chairmen ; Your Congress for wave-off'rings hanging. And ladders thronged with priests haranguing. What pillories glad the Tories' eyes With patriot ears for sacrifice ! What whipping-posts your chosen race Admit successive in embrace. While each-bears off his sins, alack, Like Bunyan's pilgrim, on his back ! Where, then, when Tories scarce get clear, Shall Whigs and Congresses appear ? What rocks and mountains will you call To wrap you over with their fall. And save your heads, in these sad weathers, Prom fire and sword, and tar and feathers ? For lo ! with British troops tar bright. Again our Nesbitt heaves in sight ; He comes, he comes, your lines to storm, And rig your troops in uniform. To meet such heroes will ye brag. With fury arm'd, and feather-bag, Who wield their missile pitch and tar With engines new in British war ? Lo ! where our mighty navy brings Destruction on her canvas wings. While through the deep the British thunder Shall sound th' alarm, to rob and plunder ! As Phoebus first, so Homer speaks, When he mareh'd out t' attack the Greeks. 'Gainst mules sent forth his arrows fatal, And slew th' auxiliaries, their cattle : So where our ships shall stretch the keel, What vanquish'd oxen shall they steal ! What heroes, rising from the deep, Invade your marshall'd hosts of sheep ; Disperse whole troops of horse, and pressing, 24 JOEN TRVMBVLL. Make cows surrender at discretion ; Attack your hens, like Alexanders, And regiments rout of geese and ganders ; Or where united arms combine, Lead captive many a herd of swine ; Then rush in dreadful fury down To fire on every seaport town ; Display their glory and their wits, Fright helpless children into fits ; And stoutly, from the unequal fray, Make many a woman run away. JAMES MADISON. 25 SantES iHalrisott, [b. Port Coventry, Virginia, March 16, 1761. d. June 28, 1836.] THE REPUBLICAN EXPERIMENT. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can ho longer live together as members of the same family ; can no longer ^~? continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness ; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of govern- ment recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world ; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors ; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. N"o, my countrymen : shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties, and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be re- jected, merely because it may comprise what is new ? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the sug- gestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their 26 AMERICAN LITERATURE. own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for the pos- session, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 27 ^lexanier l^amilton. [b. Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757. d. July 12, 1804.] THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. Gentlemen indulge too many unreasonable apprehensions of danger to the State governments ; they seem to suppose that the moment you put men into a national coun- cil they become corrupt and tyrannical, and lose Speech in the all their affection for their fellow-citizens. But oonvention. can we imagine that the Senators will ever be so insensible of their own advantage as to sacrifice the genuine interest of their constituents ? The State governments are essentially necessary to the form and spirit of the general system. As long, therefore, as Congress has a full convic- tion of this necessity, they must, even upon principles purely national, have as firm an attachment to the one as to the other. This conviction can never leave them unless they become madmen. While the constitution continues to be read, and its principle known, the States must, by every rational man, be considered as essential, component parts of the Union ; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is wholly inadmissible. The objectors do not advert to the natural strength and resources of State governments, which will ever give them an important superiority over the general government. If we compare the nature of their different powers, or the means of popular influence which each possesses, we shall find the advantage entirely on the side of the States. This consideration, important as it is, seems to have been little attended to. The aggregate number of representatives throughout the States may be two thousand. Their per- sonal influence will, therefore, be proportionably more exten- sive than that of one or two hundred men in Congress. The 28 AMERICAN LITERATURE. State establishments of civil and military officers of every description, infinitely surpassing in number any possible correspondent establishments in the general government, will create such an extent and complication of attachments as will ever secure the predilection and support of the people. Whenever, therefore. Congress shall meditate any infringement of the State constitutions, the great body of the people will naturally take part with their domestic rep- resentatives. Can the general government withstand such an united opposition ? Will the people suffer themselves to be stripped of their privileges ? Will they suffer their legislatures to be reduced to a shadow and a name ? The idea is shocking to common sense. Prom the circumstances already explained, and many others which might be mentioned, results a complicated, irresistible check, which must ever support the existence and importance of the State governments. The danger, if any exists, flows from an opposite source. The probable evil is, that the general government will be too dependent on the State legislatures, too much governed by their preju- dices, and too obsequious to their humors ; that the States, with every power in their hands, will make encroachments on the national authority till the Union is weakened and dissolved. FISHER AMES. 29 [b. Dedham, Massachusetts, April 9, 1758. d. July 4, 1808.] NATIONAL OBLIGATIONS. What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born ? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference because „ , they are greener ? No, sir, this is not the character the Britisli of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It Treaty, is an extended self-love, mingling with all the en- ^'^^^' joyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest fila- ments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. For, what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a state renounces the principles that constitute their secu- rity. Or if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his own ? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent ? The sense of having one would die within him ; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land. I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlight- ened period where it is violated, there are none where it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians — a whiff of tobacco-smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely bind- 30 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ing force but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, nor the prin- ciples of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nar tion to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, the funda- mental law of their state. They would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect themselves, to the obligations of good faith. JOEL BARLOW. 31 %atl iSarloto. [b. Redding, Connecticut, March 24, 1754. d. December 24, 1812.] THE HUSKING. [From " Hastt PnoDiNO."] The days grow short ; but though the fallen sun To the glad swain proclaims his day's work done, Night's pleasant shades his various tasks prolong, And yield new subjects to my various song. For now, the corn-house fiU'd, the harvest home, Th' invited neighbors to the husking come ; A frolic scene, whose work, and mirth, and play, Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall, The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall. Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux Alternate rang'd, extend in circling rows. Assume their seats, the solid mass attack ; The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack ; The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, And the sweet cider trips in silence round. The laws of husking ev'ry wight can tell ; And sure no laws he ever keeps so well : For each red ear, a gen'ral kiss he gains. With each smut ear he smuts the luckless swains, But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast, Eed as her lips, and taper as her waist. She walks the round, and culls one favor'd beau, Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. Various the sports, as are the wits and brains Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains ; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away. And he that gets the last ear wins the day. 32 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Meanwhile the house-wife urges all her care, The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare. The sifted meal already waits her hand, The milk is strain' d, the bowls in order stand, The fire flames high ; and, as a pool (that takes The headlong stream that o'er the mill-dam breaks) Foams, roars, and rages with incessant toils. So the next caldron rages, roars, and boils. Eirst with clean salt she seasons well the food, Then strews the flour, and thickens all the flood. Long o'er the simm'ring fire she lets it stand ; To stir it well demands a stronger hand ; The husband takes his turn ; and round and round The ladle flies ; at last the toil is crown'd ; When to the board the thronging buskers pour, And take their seats as at the corn before. INVOCATION TO FREEDOM. [From "The Coittmbiad."] Sun of the moral world ! effulgent source Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force. Soul-searching Freedom ! here assume thy stand. And radiate hence to every distant land ; Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife, The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life, Spring from unequal sway, and how they fly Before the splendor of thy peaceful eye ; Unfold at last the genuine social plan. The mind's full scope, the dignity of man. Bold nature bursting thro' her long disguise, And nations daring to be just and wise. Yes ! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea Yield or withhold their various gifts for thee ; Protected Industry beneath thy reign JOEL BARLOW. 33 Leads all the virtues in her filial train ; Courageous Probity with brow serene, And Temperance calm presents her placid mien; Contentment, Moderation, Labor, Art, Mould the new man and humanize his heart ; To public plenty private ease dilates, Domestic peace to harmony of states. Protected Industry, careering far, Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,. And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves, Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves. 34 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Gcrmantown, Virginia, September 24, 1765. d. July 6, 1835.] CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. No man ever appeared upon the theatre of public action, whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose princi- ples were more perfectly free from the contaminar ^^ ° tion of those selfish and unworthy passions which Washington. , ■ , n- find their nourishment m the conflicts of party. Having no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same ; and his whole correspond- ence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any circum- stances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright, and his means always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments and to his own countrymen were always sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction which for- ever exists between wisdom and cunning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim that "honesty is the best policy." If Washington possessed ambition, that passion was, in his bosom, so regulated by principles, or controlled by cir- cumstances, that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. In- trigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice, were unsought by himself ; and in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to his particular inclination. Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American peo- JOHN MARSHALL. 35 pie, the extravagant praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the inveterate opposition and malignant calumnies which he experienced, had any visible influence upon his conduct. The cause is to be looked for in the texture of his mind. In him, that innate and unassuming modesty which adu- lation would have offended, which the voluntary plaudits of millions could not betray into indiscretion, and which never obtruded upon others his claim to superior considera- tion, was happily blended with a high and correct sense of personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of that re- spect which is due to station. Without exertion, he could maintain the happy medium between that arrogance which wounds, and that facility which allows the oflS.ce to be degraded in the person who fills it. It is impossible to contemplate the great events which have occurred in the United States under the auspices of Washington, without ascribing them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue of a war, against the successful termination of which there were so many probabilities ; of the good which was produced, and the ill which was avoided during an administration fated to contend with the strongest prejudices that a combination of circumstances and of passions could produce ; 'of the con- stant favor of the great mass of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence which, to the last moment of his life, they reposed in him ; — the answer, so far as the causes may be found in his character, will furnish a lesson well meriting the attention of those who are candidates for political fame. Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an accu- rate, discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious at- tention which made him perfectly master of those subjects, in all their relations, on which he was to decide ; and this essential quality was guided by an unvarying sense of moral right, which would tolerate the employment only of those means that would bear the most rigid examination ; hj a fairness of intention which neither sought nor required dis- guise ; and by a purity of virtue which was not only un- tainted, but unsuspected. 36 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Pfjiltp jFren0au. [b. New York, New York, January 2, 1752. d. December 18, 1832.] THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE. Faik flower that dost so comely grow, Hid in the silent, dull retreat. Untouched thy honey'd blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet ; No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear. By Nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye. And planted here the guardian shade. And sent soft waters murmuring by ; Thus quietly thy summer goes — Thy days declining to repose. Smit with those charms, that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom ; They died — nor were those flowers more gay — The flowers that did in Eden bloom; Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power Shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evening dews At first thy little being came ; If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die you are the same ; The space between is but an hour. The frail duration of a flower. PHILIP FRENEAU. 37 TO THE MEMORY OF THE AMERICANS WHO FELL AT EUTAW. At Eutaw Springs the valiant died ; Their limbs with dust are cover'd o'er ; Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide — How many heroes are no more ! If, in this wreck of ruin, they Can yet be thought to claim the tear. Oh, smite your gentle breast and say. The friends of freedom slumber here ! Thou who shalt trace this bloody plain. If goodness rules thy generous breast, Sigh for the wasted rural reign ; Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest ! Stranger, their humble graves adorn ; You too may fall, and ask a tear ; 'Tis not the beauty of the morn That proves the evening shall be clear. They saw their injured country's wo — The flaming town, the wasted field, Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe ; They took the spear, but left the shield. Led by the conquering genius, Greene, The Britons they compell'd to fly ; None distant viewed the fatal plain ; None grieved in such a cause to die. But like the Parthians, famed of old, Who, flying, still their arrows threw, These routed Britons, full as bold. Retreated, and retreating slew. Now rest in peace, our patriot band ; Though far from Nature's limits thrown, We trust they find a happier land, A brighter sunshine of their own. 38 AMERICAN LITERATURE. (JCI^arles Brocltlim Broton, [b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvama, January 17, 1771. d. February 22, 1810.] IN THE CAVERN. I NOW exerted my voice, and cried as loud as my wasted strength would admit. Its echoes were sent back to me in broken and confused sounds and from above. This Edgar effort was casual, but some parts of that uncer- tainty in which I was involved was instantly dis- pelled by it. In passing through the cavern on the former day, I have mentioned the verge of the pit at which I ar- rived. To acquaint me as far as was possible with the dimensions of the place, I had halloed with all my force, knowing that sound is reflected according to the distance and relative positions of the substances from which it is repelled. The effect produced by my voice on this occasion resem- bled, with remarkable exactness, the effect which was then produced. Was I, then, shut up in the same cavern ? Had I reached the brink of the same precipice and been thrown headlong into that vacuity? Whence else could arise the bruises which I had received, but from my fall ? Yet all remem- brance of my journey hither was lost. I had determined to explore this cave on the ensuing day, but my memory in- formed me not that this intention had been carried into effect. Still, it was only possible to conclude that I had come hither on my intended expedition, and had been thrown by another, or had by some ill chance, fallen, into the pit. This opinion was conformable to what I had already ob- served. The pavement and walls were rugged like those of the footing and sides of the cave through which I had for- merly passed. CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 39 But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe to which I was now reserved ? The sides of this pit were inaccessible ; human footsteps would never wander into these recesses. My friends were unapprized of my forlorn state. Here I should continue till wasted by famine. In this grave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable agonies, and then perish forever. The inroads of hunger were already experienced; and this knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity urged me to frenzy. I had none but capricious and unseen fate to condemn. The author of my distress, and the means he had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible. Surely my senses were fettered or depraved by some spell. I was still asleep, and this was merely a tormenting vision ; or madness had seized me, and the darkness that environed and the hunger that afflicted me existed only in my own distempered imagination. The consolation of these doubts could not last long. Every hour added to the proof that my perceptions were real. My hunger speedily became ferocious. I tore the linen of my shirt between my teeth, and swallowed the fragments. I felt a strong propensity to bite the flesh from my arm. My heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered on the delight I should experience in rending some living animal to pieces, and drinking its blood, and grinding its quivering fibres between my teeth. This agony had already passed beyond the limits of endurance. I saw that time, instead of bringing respite or relief, would only aggravate my wants, and that my only remain- ing hope was to die before I should be assaulted by the last extremes of famine. I now recollected that a tomahawk was at hand, and rejoiced in the possession of an instrument by which I could so effectually terminate my sufferings. I took it in my hand, moved its edge over my fingers, and reflected on the force that was required to make it reach my heart. I investigated the spot where it should enter, 40 AMERICAN LITERATURE. and strove to fortify myself with resolution to repeat the stroke a second or third time, if the first should prove insufficient. I was sensible that I might fail to inflict a mortal wound, but delighted to consider that the blood which would be made to flow would finally release me, and that meanwhile my pains would be alleviated by swallowing this blood. You will not wonder that I felt some reluctance to em- ploy so fatal though indispensable a remedy. I once more ruminated on the possibility of rescuing myself by other means. I now reflected that the upper termination of the wall could not be at an immeasurable distance from the pavement. I had fallen from a height ; but if that height had been considerable, instead of being merely bruised, should I not have been dashed into pieces ? Gleams of hope burst anew upon my soul. Was it not possible, I asked, to reach the top of this pit ? The sides were rugged and uneven. Would not their projectures and abruptnesses serve me as steps by which I might ascend, in safety ? This expedient was to be tried without delay. Shortly my strength would fail, and my doom would be irrevocably sealed. I will not enumerate my laborious efforts, my alterna- tions of despondency and confidence, the eager and un- wearied scrutiny with which I examined the surface, the attempts which I made, and the failures which, for a time, succeeded each other. A hundred times, when I had ascended some feet from the bottom, I was compelled to relinquish my undertaking by the untenable smoothness of the spaces which remained to be gone over. A hundred times I threw myself, exhausted by fatigue and my pains, on the ground. The consciousness was gradually restored that, till I had attempted every part of the wall, it was absurd to despair, and I again drew my tottering limbs and aching joints to that part of the wall which had not been surveyed. At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found some- CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 41 what that seemed like a recession in the wall. It was possible that this was the top of the cavity, and this might be the avenue to liberty. My heart leaped with joy, and 1 proceeded to climb the wall. No undertaking could be con- ceived more arduous than this. The space between the verge and the floor was nearly smooth. The verge was higher from the bottom than my head. The only means of ascending that were offered me were by my hands, with which I could draw myself upward, so as, at length, to maintain my hold with my feet. My efforts were indefatigable, and at length I placed myself on the verge. "When this was accomplished, my strength was nearly gone. Had I not found space enough beyond this brink to stretch myself at length, I should unavoidably have fallen backward into the pit, and all my pains had served no other end than to deepen my despair and hasten my destruction. What impediments and perils remained to be encountered I could not judge. I was now inclined to forebode the worst. The interval of repose which was necessary to be taken, in order to recruit my strength, would accelerate the ravages of famine, and leave me without the power to proceed. In this state, I once more consoled myself that an instru- ment of death was at hand. I had drawn up with me the tomahawk, being sensible that, should this impediment be overcome, others might remain that would prove insuper- able. Before I employed it, however, I cast my eyes wildly and languidly around. The darkness was no less intense than in the pit below, and yet two objects were distinctly seen. They resembled a fixed and obscure flame. They were motionless. Though lustrous themselves, they created no illumination around them. This circumstance, added to others, which reminded me of similar objects noted on former occasions, immediately explained the nature of what I beheld. They were the eyes of a panther. 42 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Thus had I struggled to obtain a post where a savage was lurking, and waited only till my efforts should place me within reach of his fangs. The first impulse was to arm myself against this enemy. The desperateness of my condition was for a moment forgotten. The weapon which was so lately lifted against my own bosom was now raised to defend my life against the assault of another. There was no time for deliberation and delay. In a mo- ment he might spring from his station and tear me to pieces. jMy utmost speed might not enable me to reach him where he sat, but merely to encounter his assault. I did not reflect how far my strength was adequate to save me. All the force that remained was mustered up and ex- erted in a throw. No one knows the powers that are latent in his constitu- tion. Called forth by imminent dangers, our efforts fre- quently exceed our most sanguine belief. Though tottering on the verge of dissolution, and apparently unable to crawl from this spot, a force was exerted in this throw, probably greater than I had ever before exerted. It was resistless and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between those glowing orbs. It penetrated the skull, and the animal fell, struggling and shrieking, on the ground. My ears quickly informed me when his pangs were at an end. His cries and his convulsions lasted for a moment, and then ceased. The effect of his voice, in these subter- ranean abodes, was unspeakably rueful. WILLIAM WIRT. 43 SEtUiam aEtrt. [b. BladenBburg, Maryland, November 8, 1772. d. February 18, 1834.] PATRICK HENRY'S ELOQUENCE. In wliat did his peculiar excellence as an orator consist ? In what consisted that unrivalled power of speaking, which all who ever heard him admit him to have pos- sessed ? The reader is already apprized that the ^^^ °^ author of these sketches never had the advantage g of hearing Mr. Henry, and that no entire speech of his was ever extant, either in print or writing : hence there are no materials for minute and exact analysis. This inquiry, however, is natural, and has been directed, without success, to many of the most discriminating of Mr. Henry's admirers. Their answers are as various as the complexion of their own character, each preferring that property from which he had himself derived the most enjoyment, Some ascribe his excellence wholly to his manner ; others, in great part, to the originality and soundness of his matter. And among the admirers, in both classes, there are not two who concur in assigning the pre-eminence to the same quality. Of his matter, one will admire the plainness and strength of his reasoning; another, the concentrated spirit of his aphorisms ; a third, his wit ; a fourth, his pathos ; a fifth, the intrinsic beauty of his imagination : so in regard to his manner, one will place his excellence in his articulation and emphasis ; a second, in the magic power with which he infused the tones of his voice into the nerves of his hearers, and riveted their attention. The truth, therefore, probably is that it was not in any singular charm, either of matter or manner, that we are to look for the secret of his power ; but that, like Pope's definition of beauty, it was " the joint force and full result of all." 44 AMERICAN LITERATURE. If, however, we are to consider as really and entirely his, those speeches which have already been given in his name to the public, or are now prepared for them, there can be no dif&culty in deciding that his power must have consisted principally in his delivery. We know what extraordinary effects have been produced by the mere manner of an orator, without any uncommon weight or worth of matter. . . . The basis of Mr. Henry's intellectual character was strong natural sense. His knowledge of human nature was, as we have seen, consummate. His wisdom was that of observa- tion rather than of reading. His fancy, although sufficiently pregnant to furnish sup- plies for the occasion, was not so exuberant as to oppress him with its productions. He was never guilty of the fault, with which Corinna is said to have reproached her rival Pindar, of pouring his vase of flowers all at once upon the ground ; on the con- trary, their beauty and their excellence were fully observed, from their rarity, and the happiness with which they were distributed through his speeches. His feelings were strong, yet completely under his com- mand ; they rose up to the occasion, but were never suffered to overflow it ; his language was often careless, sometimes incorrect ; yet upon the whole it was pure and perspicuous, giving out his thoughts in full and clear proportion ; free from affectation and frequently beautiful; strong without efliort, and adapted to the occasion ; nervous in argument, burning in passion, and capable of matching the loftiest flights of his genius. . . . His eloquence was indeed a mighty and a roaring torrent : it had not, however, that property of Horace's stream, labi- tur et labetur, in omne volubis oevum — on the contrary, it commonly ran by in half an hour. But it bore a striking resemblance to the eloquence of Lord Chatham : it was a short but bold and most terrible assault, — a vehement, im- petuous, and overwhelming burst, — a magnificent meteor, which shot majestically across the heavens from pole to pole, and straight expired in a glorious blaze. JAMES KENT. 45 3amcs J&tnt [b. Putnam County, New York, July 31, 1763. d. December 12, 1847.] SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. The tendency of some modem theories of education is to depress the study of ancient languages and literature, and to raise up in their stead a more exclusive p, . -g . devotion to the exact sciences and mechanical phi- Kappa losophy. But this would be to prefer the study Address, of the laws of matter to the study of man as an intellectual, moral, and accountable being. And when we duly consider how unspeakably important, and how intensely interesting is the knowledge of our race, of their history, their governments, their laws, their duties, their languages, and their final destiny, we shall not be disposed to under- value literary pursuits, or to think lightly of the cultivation of the moral sciences and the study of the rights and his- tory of man as a member of civil society. Nothing con- tributes more to elevate and adorn the character of a nation than the refinements of taste, the embellishments of the arts, the spirit of freedom, the love of justice, and the study and imitation of those exalted endowments and illustrious actions, of which history furnishes the examples, and which " give ardor to virtue and confidence to truth." But I wish not to be misunderstood. I entertain no nar- row or hostile prejudice to a course of scientific education. Such a course is adapted to the wants and business of so- ciety, and this college has very wisely met on that subject the spirit of the times, and given a more extended and closer attention than formerly to the various branches of the mathematics and of the physical sciences. No one can contemplate, without astonishment and admiration, the splendid discoveries and improvements which have been 46 AMERICAN LITERATURE. made, ever since the beginning of the present century, in astronomy, electricity, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and the mechanic arts, nor ■will he be destitute of a glow of gratitude for the skilful and triumphant application of those sciences to commercial, agricultural, manufacturing and domestic purposes. They have contributed in a won- derful degree to abridge labor, facilitate intercourse, accu- mulate products, enlarge commerce, multiply the comforts of life, and elevate the power and character of the nation. My only wish is that science and literature may flourish in concert, and the one is not to regard the other as a useless or dangerous rival. They are necessary helps to each other ; and he who deals constantly in matters of fact, with strict method and patient induction, will find his whole moral constitution to stand greatly in need, from time to time, of the invigorating warmth and impulse of J;he creations of genius. The college was founded with the generous inten- tion of teaching in due proportion literature and science, and this is all that we can wish or ought to contend for. If literature eloquently recommends and elegantly adorns science, the latter supplies that knowledge of the laws of the visible creation, and of those astonishing combinations by which it is directed, that imparts to literature its highest dignity. Science furnishes arguments and helps to ethics and' to some parts of civil jurisprudence, and it supplies eloquence and poetry with much of that beautiful, affecting, and sublime imagery, which accompanies them in their most animated strains and loftiest effusions. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 47 Soscpfj Eotiman ©rafee. [b. New York, New York, August 7, 1795. d. September 21, 1820.] A FAIRY MEETING. [From " The Cxtlpbit Fat."] The stars are on the moving stream, And fling as its ripples gently flow, A burnished length of wavy beam In an eel-like, spiral line below ; The winds are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid. And nought is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did ; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings. Ever a note of wail and wo, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow. 'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell ; The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ; He has counted them all with click and stroke, Deep in the heart of the mountain oak. And he has awakened the sentry elve Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree. To bid him ring the hour of twelve. And call the fays to their revelry ; Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell — ('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell : — ) " Midnight comes, and all is well ! Hither, hither, wing your way ! 'Tis the dawn of the fairy day." 48 AMERICAN LITERATURE. They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullein's velvet screen ; Some on the backs of beetles fly From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rock'd about in the evening breeze ; Some from the hum-bird's downy nest — They had driven him out by elfin power. And pillowed on plume of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour ; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid ; And some had opened the four-o'clock, And stole within its purple shade. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above — below — on every side. Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride ! NOAH WEBSTER. 49 Noat Webster. [b. Hartford, Connecticut, October 16, 1768. d. May 28, 1843.] THE STANDARD OF SPEECH. Whatever predilection the Americans may have for their native European tongues, and particularly the British Disserta- descendants for the English, yet several circum- tiona on the Stances render a future separation of the Ameri- English can tongue from the English, necessary and una- Langnage. voidable. The vicinity of the European nations, with the uninterrupted communication in peace and the changes of dominion in war, are gradually assimilating their respective languages. The English with others is suffering continual alterations. America, placed at a distance from those nations, will feel in a much less degree, the influence of the assimilating causes ; at the same time, numerous local causes, such as a new country, new associations of people, new combinations of ideas in arts and science, and some intercourse with tribes wholly unknown in Europe, will introduce new words into the American tongue. These causes will produce, in a course of time, a language in North America as different from the future language of England as the modern Dutch, Danish, and Swedish are from the German, or from one another; like remote branches of a tree springing from the same stock, or rays of light, shot from the same centre, and diverging from each other in proportion to their distance from the point of separation. Whether the inhabitants of America can be brought to a perfect uniformity in the pronunciation of words, it is not easy to predict ; but it is certain that no attempt of the kind has been made, and an experiment, begun and pursued on the right principles, is the only way to decide the question. Schools in Great Britain have gone far towards demolish- 50 AMERICAN LITERATURE. ing local dialects — commerce has also had its influence — and in America these causes, operating more generally, must have a proportional effect. In many parts of America, people at present attempt to copy the English phrases and pronunciation — an attempt that is favored by their habits, their prepossessions, and the intercourse between the two countries. This attempt has, within the period of a few years, produced a multitude of changes in these particulars, especially among the leading classes of people. These changes make a difference between the language of the higher and common ranks, and indeed between the same ranks in different states, as the rage for copying the English does not prevail equally in every part of North America. But besides the reasons already assigned to prove this imitation absurd, there is a difficulty attending it which will defeat the end proposed by its advocates ; which is, that the English themselves have no standard of pronuncia- tion, nor can they ever have one on the plan they propose. The authors, who have attempted to give us a standard, make the practice of the court and stage in London the sole criterion of propriety in speaking. An attempt to establish a standard on this foundation is both unjust and idle. It is unjust, because it is abridging the nation of its rights. The general practice of a nation is the rule of propriety, and this practice should at least be consulted in so impor- tant a matter as that of making laws for speaking. While all men are upon a footing and no singularities are accounted vulgar or ridiculous, every man enjoys perfect liberty. But when a particular set of men, in exalted stations, undertake to say, " we are the standards of propriety and elegance, and if all men do not conform to our practice they shall be ac- counted vulgar and ignorant," they take a very great liberty with the rviles of the language and the rights of civility. But an attempt to fix a standard on the practice of any particular class of people is highly absurd ; as a friend of mine once observed, it is like fixing a light-house on a float- NOAH WEBSTER. 51 ing island. It is an attempt to fix that which is in itself variable ; at least it must be variable so long as it is sup- posed that a local practice has no standard but a local prac- tice, that is, no standard but itself. While this doctrine is believed, it will be impossible for a nation to follow as fast as the standard changes — for if the gentlemen at court con- stitute a standard, they are above it themselves, and their practice must shift with their passions and their Avhims. Bu.t this is not all. If the practice of a few men in the capital is to be the standard, a knowledge of this must be communicated to the whole nation. Who shall do this ? An able compiler perhaps attempts to give this practice in a dictionary ; but it is probable that the pronunciation, even at court or on the stage, is not uniform. The compiler there- fore must follow his particular friends and patrons, in which case he is sure to be opposed and the authority of his stand- ard called in question ; or he must give two pronunciations as the standard, which leaves the student in the same un- certainty as it found him. Both these events have actually taken place in England, with respect to the most approved standards ; and of course no one is universally followed. Besides, if language must vary, like fashions, at the caprice of a court, we must have our standard dictionaries repub- lished with the fashionable pronunciation, at least once in five years ; otherwise a gentleman in the country will become intolerably vulgar by not being in a situation to adopt the fashion of the day. The new editions of them will super- sede the old, and we shall have our pronunciation to relearn, with the polite alterations, which are generally corruptions. Such are the consequences of attempting to make a local practice the standard of language in a nation. The attempt must keep the language in perpetual fluctuation, and the learner in uncertainty. If a standard therefore cannot be fixed on local and vari- able custom, on what shall it be fixed ? If the most emi- nent speakers are not to direct our practice, where shall we look for a guide ? The answer is extremely easy ; the rules 52 AMERICAN LITERATURE. of the language itself, and the general practice of the na- tion, constitute propriety in speaking. If we examine the structure of any language, we shall find a certain principle of analogy running through the whole. We shall find in English that similar combinations of letters have usually the same pronunciation, and that words having the same terminating syllable generally have the accent at the same distance from that termination. These principles of analogy were not the result of design — they must have been the effect of accident, or that ten- dency which all men feel towards uniformity. But the principles, when established, are productive of great con- venience, and become an authority superior to the arbitrary decisions of any man or class of men. There is one excep- tion only to this remark. When a deviation from analogy has become the universal practice of a nation, it then takes place of all rules and becomes the standard of propriety. The two points, therefore, which I conceive to be the basis of a standard in speaking, are these — universal undis- puted practice, and the principle of analogy. Universal practice is generally, perhaps always, a rule of propriety ; and in disputed points, where people differ in opinion and practice, analogy should always decide the controversy. These are authorities to which all men will submit — they are superior to the opinions and caprices of the great, and to the negligence and ignorance of the multitude. The authority of individuals is always liable to be called in question, but the unanimous consent of a nation, and a fixed principle interwoven with the very construction of • a language, coeval and coextensive with it, are like the com- mon laws of a land or the immutable rules of morality, the propriety of which every man, however refractory, is forced to acknowledge, and to which most men will readily submit. Fashion is usually the child of caprice and the being of a day ; principles of propriety are founded in the very nature of things, and remain unmoved and unchanged, amidst all the fluctuations of human affairs and the revolutions of time. WILLIAM ELLEEY CHANNING. 53 SEtlUam lEllerg CJjanntnfl. [b. Newport, Rhode Island, April T, 1780. d. October 2, 1842.] INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY. Free institutions contribute in no small degree to freedom and force of mind, by teaching the essential equality of men and their right and duty to goTern them- selves ; and I cannot but consider the superiority °P'"*°^^ „ ' . . . ^ i Freedom. 01 an elective government as consisting very much in the testimony which it bears to these ennobling truths. It has often been said that a good code of laws, and not the form of government, is what determines a people's happi- ness. But good laws, if not springing from the community, if imposed by a master, would lose much of their value. The best code is that which has its origin in the will of the people who obey it ; which, whilst it speaks with authority, still recognizes self-government as the primary right and duty of a rational being, and which thus cherishes in the individual, be his condition what it may, a just self-respect. We may learn that the chief good and the most precious fruit of civil liberty is spiritual freedom and power, by considering what is the chief evil of tyranny. I know that tyranny does evil by invading men's outward interests, by making property and life insecure, by robbing the laborer to pamper the noble and king. But its worst influence is within. Its chief curse is that it breaks and tames the spirit, sinks man in his own eyes, takes away vigor of thought and action, substitutes for conscience an outward rule, makes him abject, cowardly, a parasite, and a cringing slave. This is the curse of tyranny. It wars with the soul, and thus it wars with God. We read in theologians and poets 64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. of angels fighting against the Creator, of battles in heaven. But God's throne in heaven is unassailable. The only war against God is against his image, against the divine prin- ciple in the soul, and this is waged by tyranny in all its forms. We here see the chief curse of tyranny ; and this should teach us that civil freedom is a blessing chiefly as it reverences the human soul and ministers to its growth and power. Without this inward spiritual freedom outward liberty is of little worth. What boots it that I am crushed by no foreign yoke if, through ignorance and vice, through selfish- ness and fear, I want the command of my own mind ? The worst tyrants are those which establish themselves in our own breast. The man who wants force of principle and purpose is a slave, however free the air he breathes. The mind, after all, is our only possession, or, in other words, we possess all things through its energy and enlargement ; and civil institutions are to be estimated by the free and pure minds to which they give birth. It will be seen from these remarks, that I consider the freedom or moral strength of the individual mind as the supreme good, and the highest end of government. I am aware that other views are often taken. It is said that government is intended for the public, for the community, not for the individual. The idea of a national interest prevails in the minds of statesmen, and to this it is thought that the individual may be sacrificed. But I would main- tain that the individual is not made for the state so much as the state for the individual. A man is not created for political relations as his highest end, but for indefinite spiritual progress, and is placed in political relations as the means of his progress. The human soul is greater, more sacred, than the state, and must never be sacrificed to it. The human soiil is to outlive all earthly institutions. The distinction of nations is to pass away. Thrones which have stood for ages are to meet the doom pronounced upon all man's works. But the individual mind survives, and the WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 55 obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to a power never wielded by earthly potentates. A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to contribute to some general, joint result. He was created, not to be merged in the whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the sea-shore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being, made for his own perfection as the high- est end, made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others only as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an outward author- ity more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret conscience. Eulers have called the private man the prop- erty of the state, meaning generally by the state them- selves, and thus the many have been immolated to the few, and have even believed that this was their highest destination. These views cannot be too earnestly with- stood. iSTothing seems to me so needful as to give to the mind the consciousness, which governments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate worth. Let the indi- vidual feel that, through his immortality, he may concen- trate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed in the community, not to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a prepara- tion for immortal glory. To me, the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the indi- vidual, in giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate his own mind. In thus maintaining that the individual is the end of social institutions, I may be thought to discourage public efforts and the sacrifice of private interests to the state. 56 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Far from it. jS'o man, I afiirm, will serve his fellow-beings so effectually, so fervently, as he who is not their slave, — as he who, casting ofE every other yoke, subjects himself to the law of duty in his own mind. For this law enjoins a disin- terested and generous spirit as man's glory and likeness to his Maker. Individuality, or moral self-subsistence, is the surest foundation of an all-comprehending love. No man so multiplies his bonds with the community as he who watches most jealously over his own perfection. There is a beautiful harmony between the good of the state and the moral freedom and dignity of the individual. Were it n^t so, were these interests in any case discordant, were an individual ever called to serve his country by acts debasing his own mind, he ought not to waver a moment as to the good which he should prefer. Property, life, he should joyfully surrender to the state. But his soul he must never stain or enslave. From poverty, pain, the rack, the gibbet, he should not recoil; but for no good of others ought he to part with self-control or violate the inward law. We speak of the patriot as sacrificing himself to the public weal. Do we mean that he sacrifices what is most properly himself, the principle of piety and virtue ? Do we not feel that, however great may be the good which through his sufferings accrues to the state, a greater and purer glory redounds to himself, and that the most precious fruit of his disinterested services is the strength of resolution and philan- thropy which is accumulated in his own soul ? JOHN PIERPONT. 5T [■b. Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785. d. August 26, 1866.] MY CHILD. I CAIT not make him dead ! His fair sunshiny head Is ever bounding round my study chair; Yet, when my eyes, now dim With tears, I turn to him. The vision vanishes — he is not there ! I walk my parlor floor. And, through the open door, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; I'm stepping tow'rd the hall To give the boy a call ; And then bethink me that — he is not there ! I thread the crowded street ; A satchel'd lad I meet, With the same beaming eyes and color'd hair : And, as he's running by, Follow him with my eye, Scarcely believing that — he is not there ! I know his face is hid Under the cof6.n-lid ; Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; My hand that marble felt ; O'er it in prayer I knelt ; Yet my heart whispers that — he is not there ! I can not make him dead ! When passing by the bed. So long watched over with parental care. 58 AMERICAN LITERATURE. My spirit and my eye Seek him inquiringly, Before the thought comes that — he is not there ! When, at the cool gray break Of day, from sleep I wake, "With my first breathing of the morning air My soul goes up, with joy, To Him who gave my boy ; Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there ! "When at the day's calm close, Before we seek repose, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, Whate'er I may be saying, I am in spirit praying For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there ! Not there ! — Where, then, is he ? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear. The grave, that now doth press Upon that cast-off dress. Is but his wardrobe lock'd ; — he is not there ! He lives ! — In all the past He lives ; nor, to the last. Of seeing him again will I despair ; In dreams I see him now ; And on his angel brow, I see it written — " Thou shalt see me there ! " Yes, we all live to God ! Father ! Thy chastening rod So help us, thine aflB.icted ones, to bear. That, in the spirit land. Meeting at Thy right hand, 'Twill be our heaven to find that — he is there ! HENRY CLAY. 59 [b. Hanover County, Virginia, April 12, 1777. d. June 29, 1852.] A PLEA FOR COMPROMISE. The responsibility of this great measure passes from the hands of the committee, and from my hands. They know, and I know, that it is an awful and tremendous „ i. ■ ^ ispeecli in responsibility. I hope that you will meet it with the Senate, a just conception and a true appreciation of its July 22, magnitude, and the magnitude of the consequences that may ensue from your decision one way or the other. The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents, are concord and increased discord; a servile civil war, origi- nating in its causes on the lower Eio Grande, and termi- nating possibly in its consequences on the upper Rio Grande in the Santa F6 country, or the restoration of harmony and fraternal kindness. I believe, from the bottom of my soul, that the measure is the reunion of this Union. I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land. I believe that it will be attended with all these beneficent effects. And now let us discard all resentment, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of place, all hankerings after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, frOm whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the limpid fountain of unadulterated patriot- ism, and, performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our glorious Union — that Union without which we shall be 60 AMERICAN LITERATURE. torn into hostile fragments, and sooner or later become the victims of military despotism, or foreign domination. Mr. President, what is an individual man? An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass — a mere speck upon the surface of the immense universe ; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and never-ending eternity ; a drop of water in the great deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds ; a grain of sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung. ShaH a being so small, so petty, so fleeting, so evanescent, oppose itself to the onward march of a great nation, which is to subsist for ages and ages to come ; oppose itself to that long line of posterity, which, issuing from our loins, will endure during the existence of the world? Porbid it, God. Let us look to our country and our cause, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disin- terested patriots, and save our country from all impending dangers. What if, in the march of this nation to greatness and power, we should be buried beneath the wheels that propel it onward ! What are we — what is any man — worth who is not ready and willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country when it is necessary ? . . . If this Union shall become separated, new unions, new confederacies will arise. And with respect to this, if there be any — I hope there is no one in the Senate — before whose imagination is flitting the idea of a great Southern Confederacy to take possession of the Balize and the mouth of the Mississippi, I say in my place, never ! never ! never ! will we who occupy the broad waters of the Mississippi and its upper tributaries consent that any foreign flag shall float at the Balize or upon the turrets of the Crescent City — never! never! I call upon all the South. Sir, we have had hard words, bitter words, bitter thoughts, unpleasant feelings toward each other in the progress of this great measure. Let us forget them. Let us sacrifice these feel- ings. Let us go to the altar of our country and swear, as the oath was taken of old, that we will stand by her ; that HENRY CLAY. 61 we will support her ; that we will uphold her Constitution ; that we will preserve her Union; and that we will pass this great, comprehensive, and healing system of measures, which will hush all the jarring elements, and bring peace and tranquillity to our homes. 62 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 3o5)n CalUtoell Cali)oun. [b. Abbeville, South Carolina, March 18, 1782. d. March 31, 1850.] STATE SOVEREIGNTY. Is this a Federal Union? a union of States, as distinct from that of individuals ? Is the sovereignty in the several States, or in the American people in the aggre- Speech on gg^^g rew Orleans a man of haughty mien, who wore the Turk- ish dress, and whose whole attendance was a single servant. 228 AMERICAN LITERATURE. He was received by the governor with the highest dis- tinction, and was conducted by him to a small but comfortar ble house with a pretty garden, then existing at the corner of Orleans and Dauphine streets, and which, from the cir- cumstance of its being so distant from other dwellings, might have been called a rural retreat, although situated in the limits of the city. There, the stranger, who was under- stood to be a prisoner of state, lived in the greatest seclu- sion ; and although neither he nor his attendant could be guilty of indiscretion, because none understood their lan- guage, and although Governor Pdrier severely rebuked the slightest inquiry, yet it seemed to be the settled conviction ill Louisiana, that the mysterious stranger was a brother of the Sultan, or some great personage of the Ottoman empire, who had fled from the anger of the viceregent of Mohammed, and who had taken refuge in France. The Sultan had per- emptorily demanded the fugitive, and the French govern- ment, thinking it derogatory to its dignity to comply with that request, but at the same time not wishing to expose its friendly relations with the Moslem monarch, and perhaps desiring, for political purposes, to keep in hostage the im- portant guest it had in its hands, had recourse to the ex- pedient of answering that he had fled to Louisiana, which was so distant a country that it might be looked upon as the grave, where, as it was suggested, the fugitive might be suffered to wait in peace for actual death, without danger or offence to the Sultan. Whether this story be true or not is now a matter of so little consequence, that it would not repay the trouble of a strict historical investigation. The year 1727 was drawing to its close, when on a dark, stormy night, the howling and barking of the numerous dogs in the streets of New Orleans were observed to be fiercer than usual, and some of that class of individuals who pretend to know everything, declared that, by the vivid flashes of the lightning, they had seen, swiftly and stealthily gliding toward the residence of the unknown, a body of men who wore the scowling appearance of malefac- CHARLES tlTIENNE ARTHUR GAYARR&. 229 tors and ministers of blood. There afterward came also a report that a piratical-looking Turkish vessel had been hov- ering a few days previous in the bay of Barataria. Be it as it may, on the next morning the house of the stranger was deserted. There were no traces of mortal struggle to be seen; but in the garden, the earth had been dug, and there was the unmistakable indication of a recent grave. Soon, however, all doubts were removed by the finding of an inscription in Arabic characters, engraved on a marble tablet, which was subsequently sent to France. It ran thus : " The justice of heaven is satisfied, and the date tree shall grow on the traitor's tomb. The sublime Emperor of the faithful, the supporter of the faith, the omnipotent master and Sultan of the world, has redeemed his vow. God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet. Allah!" Some time after this event, a foreign-looking tree was seen to peep out of the spot where a corpse must have been depos- ited in that stormy night, when the rage of the elements yielded to the pitiless fury of man, and it thus explained in some degree this part of the inscription, " the date tree shall grow on the traitor's grave." Who was he, or what had he done, who had provoked such relentless and far-seeking revenge ? Ask Nemesis, or — at that hour when evil spirits are allowed to roam over the earth, and magical invocations are made — go, and in- terrogate the tree of the dead. 230 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Cljoinas Bucljanan Eeali. [b. Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1822. d. May 11, 1872.] THE WAY-SIDE SPRING. Pair dweller by the dusty way — Bright saint within a mossy shrine, The tribute of a heart to-day Weary and worn is thine. The earliest blossoms of the year, The sweet-briar and the violet. The pious hand of Spring has here Upon thy altar set. And not alone to thee is given The homage of the pilgrim's knee — But oft the sweetest birds of heaven Glide down and sing to thee. Here daily from his beechen cell The hermit squirrel steals to drink, And flocks which cluster to their bell Recline along thy brink. And here the wagoner blocks his wheels, To quaff the cool and generous boon. Here from the sultry harvest fields The reapers rest at noon. And oft the beggar marked with tan, In rusty garments gray with dust. Here sits and dips his little can. And breaks his scanty crust ; THOMAS BUCHANAN BEAD. 231 And, lulled beside thy whispering stream, Oft drops to slumber unawares, And sees the angel of his dream Upon celestial stairs. Dear dweller by the dusty way, Thou saint within a mossy shrine, The tribute of a heart to-day Weary and worn is thine ! THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. Between broad fields of wheat and corn Is the lowly home where I was born ; The peach-tree leans against the wall, And the woodbine wanders over all ; There is the shaded doorway still. But a stranger's foot has crossed the sill. There is the barn — and, as of yore, I can smell the hay from the open door. And see the busy swallows throng, And hear the peewee's mournful song ; But the stranger comes — oh ! painful proof — His sheaves are piled to the heated roof. There is the orchard — the very trees Where my childhood knew long hours of ease. And watched the shadowy moments run Till my life imbibed more shade than sun : The swing from the bough still sweeps the air, But the stranger's children are swinging there. There bubbles the shady spring below. With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow ; 232 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 'Twas tliere I found tlie calamus root, And watched the minnows poise and shoot, And heard the robin lave his wing, But the stranger's bucket is at the spring. Oh, ye who daily cross the sill. Step lightly, for I love it still ; And when you crowd the old barn eaves. Then think what countless harvest sheaves Have passed within that scented door To gladden eyes that are no more. Deal kindly with these orchard trees ; And when your children crowd their knees, Their sweetest fruit they shall impart. As if old memories stirred their heart : To youthful sport still leave the swing. And in sweet reverence hold the spring. The barn, the trees, the brook, the birds, The meadows with their lowing herds. The woodbine on the cottage wall — My heart still lingers with them all. Ye strangers on my native sill. Step lightly, for I love it still ! THOMAS STARR KING. 233 Etomas .Starr l^ing. [b. New Toi-k, New York, December 17, 1824. d. March 4, 1863.] SIGHT AND INSIGHT. Theee may be a meadow farm among the mountains. The heir to it gets a cabbage and a corn crop from it, sus- pecting no other latent fertility and produce. A man of science buys it, gets no less cabbages and hay, but reaps a geology-crop as well. An artist buys it, and lo ! a harvest of beauty and delight, budding even when the grain is garnered, dropping sweet into his eyes even from arctic dawns and blazing snows. A man of deepest insight lives on it, and the laws of his farm open to him the prudence and prodigality of Prov- idence. In the way the grain grows, the enemies it has, the friendships of all good forces to its advance, in the chemistry of his farming, in the peace that sleeps on the hills, in the gathering and retreat of storms, in the soft approach of spring, and the melancholy death, — he reads lessons that become inmost wisdom. He has a faculty that is the sickle of more subtle crop-sheaves of spiritual truth. . . . Just as there are spelling-classes for the youngest schol- ars in our schools, in which the separate letters are the chief things they see, where the great problem is to com- bine them into words, and where the mental organs are not capable of configuring words into propositions, — so very few of us on the planet ever get able to handle the letters of nature easily, ever get beyond the power of spelling them into single words. Some are able to read off the aspects of creation into science. They can put the stars together into paragraphs that state laws and harmonies and grandeurs. 234 AMERICAN LITERATUBE. Some go farther, and rhyme the mighty vocabulary of science into beauty; but few get such command of the language that they see and rejoice in the highest, glorious truth which the volume holds. . . . Insight, therefore, opens the intellectual world of law and harmony beneath the world of physical shows ; . within that, the world of beauty ; within that again, the realm of spiritual language. In the human world it shows, deep behind deep, law working in society, controlling politics and shaping the destiny of nations ; while, in the individual sphere, it unveils man as the epitome of the universe, clad continually in the electric vesture of his character. Every man, as every animal, has sight ; but just accord- ing to the scale of his insight is the world he lives in a deep one, an awful one, a mystic and glorious world. We see what is, only as we see into what appears. Out of three roots grows the great tree of nature, — truth, beauty, good. The man of science follows up its mighty stem, measures it, and sees its branches in the silver-leaved boughs of the firmament. The poet delights in the sym- metry of its strength, the grace of its arches, the flush of its fruit. Only to the man with finer eye than both is the secret glory of it unveiled ; for his vision discerns how it is fed and in what air it thrives. To him it is only an expan- sion of the burning bush on Horeb, seen by the solemn prophet, glowing continually with the presence of Infinite Law and Love, yet standing forever unconsumed. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 235 Softn ffireenleaf OTf)tttin. [b. Haverhill, MassaohuBetts, December 17, 1807.] IN SCHOOL DAYS. Still sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sunning ; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry-vines are running. Within, the master's desk is seen. Deep scarred by raps official ; The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial; The charcoal frescoes on its wall ; Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school, Went storming out to playing ! Long years ago, a winter sun Shone over it at setting : Lit up its western window-panes. And low eaves' icy fretting. It touched the tangled golden curls. And brown eyes full of grieving, Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving. For near her stood the little boy Her childish favor singled; His cap pulled low upon a face Where pride and shame were mingled. 236 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Pushing with restless feet the snow- To right and left, he lingered ; — As restlessly her tiny hands The blue-checked apron fingered. He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing. "I'm sorry that I spelt the word; I hate to go above you, Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, • " Because, you see, I love you ! " Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing. Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing ! He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her, — because they love him. ICHABOD ! So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn Which once he wore ! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore ! Eevile him not, — the Tempter hath A snare for all ; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath. Befit his fall ! JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 237 0, dumb be passion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night. Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven ! Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, Nor brand with deeper shame his dim Dishonored brow. But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make. Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains, — • A fallen angel's pride of thought, StiU strong in chains. All else is gone ; from those great eyes The soul has iled : When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead ! Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame; Walk backward, with averted gaze. And hide the shame ! 238 AMERICAN LITERATURE. WORSHIP. The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Eound fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places. The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. Eed altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky ; Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below. The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe ! Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer ; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air : As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please ; As if his ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys ! Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence : and the oppressor there, JOHN GEEEN-LEAF WHITTIER. 239 Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. Not such the service the benignant Father Eequireth at his earthly children's hands : Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands. For Earth he asks it : the full joy of Heaven Knoweth no change of waning or increase ; The great heart of the Infinite beats even. Untroubled flows the river of his peace. He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding The priestly altar and the saintly grave, No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, Nor incense clouding up the twilight nave. For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken : The holier worship which he deigns to bless, Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, And feeds the widow and the fatherless ! Types of our human weakness and our sorrow ! Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead ? Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled ? brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother ; Where pity dwells the peace of God is there ; To worship rightly is to love each other. Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was " doing good " ; So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple. Each loving life a psalm of gratitude. 240 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Then shall all shackles fall ; the stormy clangor Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace ! SNOW-BOUND. Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about. Content to let the north wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat ; And ever, when a louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed, The house-dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet. The mug of cider simmered slow, The apples sputtered in a row. And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. What matter how the night behaved ? What matter how the north wind raved ? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. Time and Change ! — with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, JOHN GBEENLEAF WHITTIER. 241 How strange it seems, with so mucli gone Of life and love, to still live on ! Ah, brother ! only I and thou Are left of all that circle now : — The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone, Henceforward, listen as we will. The voices of that hearth are still ; Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, Those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the paths their feet have worn, We sit beneath their orchard trees. We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn ; We turn the pages that they read. Their written words we linger o'er. But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, JSTo step is on the conscious floor ! Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, (Since He who knows our need is just,) That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play ! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own ! 242 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Boston, Hassachusetts, December 2d, 1809.] TO CERES. Goddess of bounty ! at whose spring-time call, When on the dewy earth thy first tones fall, Pierces the ground each young and tender blade, And wonders at the sun ; each dull, gray glade Is shining with new grass ; from each chill hole, Where they had lain enchain'd and dull of soul. The birds come forth, and sing for joy to thee Among the springing leaves ; and, fast and free. The rivers toss their chains up to the sun, And through their grassy banks leapingly run, When thou hast touch' d them : thou who ever art The goddess of aU beauty : thou whose heart Is ever in the sunny meads and fields ; To whom the laughing earth looks up and yields Her waving treasures : thou that in thy car With winged dragons, when the morning star Sheds his cold light, touchest the morning trees Until they spread their blossoms to the breeze ; — 0, pour thy light Of truth and joy upon our souls this night. And grant to us all plenty and good ease ! 0, thou, the goddess of the rustling corn ! Thou to whom reapers sing, and on the lawn Pile up their baskets with the fuU-ear'd wheat ; While maidens come, with little dancing feet. And bring thee poppies, weaving thee a crown Of simple beauty, bending their heads down ALBERT PIKE. 243 To garland thy full baskets : at whose side, Among the sheaves of wheat, doth Bacchus ride With bright and sparkling eyes, and feet and mouth All wine-stain'd from the warm and sunny south : Perhaps one arm about thy neck he twines, While in his car ye ride among the vines, And with the other hand he gathers up The rich, full grapes, and holds the glowing cup Unto thy lips — and then he throws it by. And crowns thee with bright leaves to shade thine eye, So it may gaze with richer love and light Upon his beaming brow : If thy swift flight Be on some hill Of vine-hung Thrace — 0, come, while night is still. And greet with heaping arms our gladden'd sight ! Lo ! the small stars, above the silver wave. Come wandering up the sky, and kindly lave The thin clouds with their light, like floating sparks Of diamonds in the air ; or spirit barks. With unseen riders, wheeling in the sky. Lo ! a soft mist of light is rising high, Like silver shining through a tint of red, And soon the queened moon her love will shed, Like pearl-mist, on the earth and on the sea. Where thou shalt cross to view our mystery. Lo ! we have torches here for thee, and urns, Where incense with a floating odor burns, And altars piled with various fruits and flowers, And ears of corn, gather'd at early hours. And odors fresh from India, with a heap Of many-color'd poppies : — Lo ! we keep Our silent watch for thee, sitting before Thy ready altars, till to our lone shore Thy chariot-wheels Shall come, while ocean to the burden reels, And utters to the sky a stifled roar. 244 AMERICAN LITERATURE. TO SPRING. thou delicious Spring ! Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers, Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing From odorous beds of light-enfolded flowers, And from enmassed bowers. That over grassy walks their greenness fling, Come, gentle Spring ! Thou lover of young wind. That cometh from the invisible upper sea Beneath the sky, which clouds its white foam bind, And, settling in the trees deliciously. Makes young leaves dance with glee, Even in the teeth of that old, sober hind, Winter unkind, Gome to us ; for thou art Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring ! Touching the sacred feeling of the heart. Or, like a virgin's pleasant welcoming ; And thou dost ever bring A tide of gentle but resistless art Upon the heart. Eed Autumn from the south Contends with thee ; alas ! what may he show ? What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth. And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow, And timid, pleasant glow. Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth. And greenest youth ? G-ay Summer conquers thee ; And yet he has no beauty such as thine ; ALBERT PIKE. 245 What is his ever-streaming, fiery sea, To the pure glory that with thee doth shine ? Thou season most divine, What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy Compare with thee ? Come, sit upon the hills. And bid the waking streams leap down their side. And green the vales with their slight-sounding rills ; And when the stars upon the sky shall glide. And crescent Dian ride, I, too, will breathe of thy delicious thrills, On grassy hills. Alas ! bright Spring, not long Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence ; For thou shalt die the Summer heat among, Sublimed to vapor in his fire intense. And, gone forever hence. Exist no more : no more to earth belong, Except in song. So I who sing shall die : Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow ; And, fainting thus, with an unconscious sigh. Bid unto this poor body a good-morrow. Which now sometimes I borrow. And breathe of joyance keener and more high, Ceasing to sigh ! 246 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Boston, MaesachuscttB, May 12, 1809.] THE PILGRIM FATHERS. When I behold a feeble company of exiles, quitting the strange land to which persecution had forced them to flee; entering with so many sighs and sobs and partings before the ^'^^ prayers on a voyage so full of perils at the New-Eng- best, but rendered a hundredfold more perilous by land Society, t]ie unusual severities of the season and the abso- 1 OOQ lute unseaworthiness of their ship; arriving in the depth of winter on a coast to which even their pilot was a perfect stranger, and where " they had no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain them, no houses, much less towns, to repair unto for succor," but where, — instead of friends, shelter, or refreshment, — • famine, exposure, the wolf, the savage, disease, and death, seemed waiting for them ; and yet accomplishing an end which royalty and patronage, the love of dominion and of gold, individual adventure and corporate enterprise had so long essayed in vain, and founding a colony which was to defy alike the machinations and the menaces of tyranny, in all periods of its history, — it needs not that I should find the coral path- way of the sea laid bare, and its waves a wall on the right hand and on the left, and the crazed chariot-wheels of the oppressor floating in fragments upon its closing floods, to feel, to realize, that higher than human was the Power which presided over the Exodus of the Pilgrim ^Fathers ! Was it not something more than the ignorance or the self-will of our earthly and visible pilot, which, instead of conducting them to the spot which they had deliberately selected, — the very spot on which we are now assembled, ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP. 247 the banks of your own beautiful Hudson, of which they had heard so much during their sojourn in Holland, but which was then swarming with a host of horrible savages, — guided them to a coast which, though bleaker and far less hospitable in its outward aspect, had yet, by an extraor- dinary epidemic, but a short time previous, been almost completely cleared of its barbarous tenants ? Was it not something more, also, than mere mortal error or human mistake, which, instead of bringing them within the limits- prescribed in the patent they had procured in England, directed them to a shore on which they were to land upon their own responsibility and under their own authority, and thus compelled them to an act which has rendered Cape Cod more memorable than Runnymede, and the cabin of the Mayflower than the proudest hall of ancient charter or modern constitution, — the execution of the first written original contract of Democratic Self-Government which is found in the annals of the world ? But the Pilgrims, I have said, had a power within them also. If God was not seen among them in the fire of a Horeb, in the earthquake of a Sinai, or in the wind cleaving asunder the waves of the sea they were to cross, He was with them, at least, in the still, small voice. Conscience, conscience, was the nearest to an earthly power which the Pilgrims possessed, and the freedom of conscience the nearest to an earthly motive which prompted their career. It was conscience which " weaned them from the delicate milk of their mother country, and inured them to the difficulties of a strange land." It was conscience which made them not as other men, whom small things could discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again. It was conscience — that "robur et ses triplex cir- capectus " — which emboldened them to launch their fragile bark upon a merciless ocean, fearless of the fighting winds and lowering storms. It was conscience which stiffened them to brave the perils, endure the hardships, undergo the privations of a howling, houseless, hopeless desolation. 248 AMERICAN LITERATURE. And thus, almost in the very age when the Great Master of human nature was putting into the mouth of one of his most interesting and philosophical characters that well- remembered conclusion of a celebrated soliloquy, — " Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action," — this very conscience, a clog, and an obstacle, indeed, to its foes, but the surest strength and sharpest spur of its friends, was inspiring a courage, confirming a resolution, and accom- plishing an enterprise, to which the records of the world will be searched in vain to find a parallel. Let it never be forgotten that it was conscience, and that not intrenched behind broad seals, but enshrined in brave souls, which carried through and completed the long-baffled undertaking of settling the New England coast. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 24& [b. Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809,] OPINIONS. The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot, at the expression, " his rela- tions with truth as I understand truth," and when mi, « ^ I had done, sniffed audibly, and said I talked like crat of the a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense Breakfast was good enough for him. Precisely so, my dear ^^"i*' sir, I replied ; common sense, as you understand it. We all have to assume a standard of judgment in our own minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing to take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice of whom to follow, which is often as nice a mat- ter as to judge of things for one's self. On the whole, I had rather judge men's minds by comparing their thoughts with my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who utter them. I must do one or the other. It does not follow, of course, that I may not recognize another man's thoughts as broader and deeper than my own ; but that does not necessarily change my opinion, otherwise this would be at the mercy of every superior mind that held a different one. How many of our most cherished beliefs are like those drinking-glasses of the ancient pattern, that serve us well so long as we keep them in our hand, but spill all if we attempt to set them down ! I have sometimes compared conversation to the Italian game of mora, in which one player lifts his hand with so many fingers extended, and the other gives the number if he can. I show my thought, another his ; if they agree, well ; if they differ, we find the largest common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid dis- 250 AMERICAN LITERATURE. puting about remainders and fractions, wliich is to real talk what tuning an instrument is to playing on it. TALK. I really belieye some peojjle save their bright thoughts as being too precious for conversation. What do you think The Auto- ^^ admiring friend said the other day to one that orat of the "was talking good things, — good enough to print ? Breakfast "Why," Said he, "you are wasting merchantable °' literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the window, and asked him to look out and tell what he saw. " Nothing but a very dusty street," he said, " and a man driving a sprinkling-machine through it." " Why don't you tell the man he is wasting that water ? What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our thought-sprinklers through them with the valves open, sometimes ? " Besides, there is another thing about this talking, which you forget. It shapes our thoughts for us ; — the waves of conversation roll them as the surf rolls the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the image a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an aiiiist models in clay. Spoken lan- guage is so plastic, — you can pat and coax, and spread and shave, and rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you work that soft material, that there is nothing like it for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to write such. Or, to use another illustration, writing or printing is like shooting with a rifle ; you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it ; — but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe of an engine ; if it is within reach, and you have time enough, you can't help hitting it. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 251 TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like ^j^^ ^^t^_ marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on orat of the each is written in letters of gold. Truth. The Breakfast spheres are veined and streaked and spotted be- ^' neath, with a dark crimson flush above, where the light falls upon them, and in a certain aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very likely clutches at both. The spheres are the most convenient things in the world; they roll with the least possible impulse just where the child would have them. The cubes will not roll at all ; they have a great talent for standing still, and always keep right side up. But very soon the young philosopher finds that things which roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong corner, and to get out of his way when he most wants them, while he always knows where to find the others, which stay where they are left. Thus he learns — thus we learn — to drop the streaked and speckled globes of falsehood, and to hold fast the white, angular blocks of truth. But then comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all Polite-behavior, all insisting that truth must roll, or nobody can do anything with it ; and so the first with her coarse rasp, and the second with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they have got a little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the rolling spheres of falsehood. 252 AMERICAN LITERATURE. THE LAST LEAF. I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, " They are gone." The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. My grandmamma has said, — Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago, — That he had a Roman nose. And his cheek was like a rose In the snow. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 263 But now Ms nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here ; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer ! And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring. Let them smile as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings. And coral reefs lie bare. Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; Wrecked is this ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell. Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell. 254 AMERICAN LITERATURE. As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, — Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil ; Still, as the spiral grew. He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door. Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. Child of the wandering sea. Cast from her lap, forlorn ! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! While on mine ear it rings. Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! UNDER THE VIOLETS. Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; Ifo more her pulses come and go ; Her eyes are shut to life and light ; — Fold the white vesture, snow on snow. And lay her where the violets blow. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 255 But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears witli alien eyes ; A slender cross of wood alone Shall say, that here a maiden lies In peace beneath the peaceful skies. And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run. And through their leaves the robins call, And,- ripening in the autumn sun, The acorns and the chestnuts fall, Doubt not that she will heed them all. Eor her the morning choir shall sing Its matins from the branches high, And every minstrel-voice of spring, That trills beneath the April sky. Shall greet her with its earliest cry. When, twining round their dial-track. Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, Her little mourners, clad in black. The crickets sliding through the grass, Shall pipe for her an evening mass. At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, And bear the buried dust they seize In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. If any, born of kindlier blood, Should ask. What maiden lies below ? Say only this : A tender bud, That tried to blossom in the snow. Lies withered where the violets blow. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 257 ^Kxvitt iScecter Stotoe, [b. Litchfield, Connecticut, June 14, 1812.] SAM MENDS THE CLOCK. " Why, ye see, Miss Lois," he would say, " clocks can't be druv ; that's jest what they can't. Some things can be druv, and then agin some things can't, and clocks is that kind. They's jest got to be humored, p ,,°'™ Now this 'ere's a 'mazin' good clock ; give me my time on it, and I'll have it so t'will keep straight on to the Millennium." "Millennium !" says Aunt Lois, with a snort of infinite contempt. " Yes, the Millennium," says Sam, letting fall his work in a contemplative manner. " That 'ere's an inter- estin' topic. Now Parson Lothrop, he don't think the Mil- lennium will last a thousand years. What's your 'pinion on that pint. Miss Lois ? " "My opinion is," said Aunt Lois, in her most nipping tones, "that if folks don't mind their own business, and do with their might what their hand finds to do, the Millen- nium won't come at all." "Wal, you see. Miss Lois, it's just here, — one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." " I should think you thought a day was a thousand years, the way you work," said Aunt Lois. " Wal," says Sam, sitting down with his back to his des- perate litter of wheels, weights, and pendulums, and medi- tatively caressing his knee as he watched the sailing clouds in abstract meditation, "ye see, ef a thing's ordained, why it's got to be, ef you don't lift a finger. That 'ere's so now, ain't it ? " 258 AMERICAN LITERATURE. " Sam Lawson, you are about tlie most aggravating crea- ture I ever had to do witli. Here you've got our clock all to pieces, and have been keeping up a perfect hurrah's nest in our kitchen for three days, and there you sit maundering and talking with your back to your work, fussin' about the Millennium, which is none of your business, or mine, as I know of! Do either put that clock together or let it alone ! " " Don't you be a grain uneasy, Miss Lois. Why, I'll have your clock all right in the end, but I can't be druv. Wal, I guess I'll take another spell on't to-morrow or Friday." Poor Aunt Lois, horror-stricken, but seeing herself actu- ally in the hands of the imperturbable enemy, now essayed the task of conciliation. " Now do, Lawson, just finish up this job, and I'll pay you down, right on the spot ; and you need the money." " I'd like to 'blige ye. Miss Lois ; but ye see money ain't everything in this world. Ef I work tew long on one thing, my mind kind o' gives out, ye see ; and besides, I've got some 'sponsibilities to 'tend to. There's Mrs. Captain Brown, she made me promise to come to-day and look at the nose o' that 'ere silver teapot o' hern ; it's kind o' sprung a leak. And then I 'greed to split a little oven-wood for the Widdah Pedee, that lives up on the Shelburn road. Must visit the widdahs in their afliction, Scriptur' says. And then there's Hepsy : she's allers a castin' it up at me that I don't do nothing for her and the chil'en; but then, lordy massy, Hepsy hain't no sort o' patience. Why, jest this mornin' I was a tellin' her to count up her marcies, and I 'clare for't if I didn't think she'd a throwed the tongs at me. That 'ere woman's temper railly makes me consarned. Wal, good day. Miss Lois. I'll be along again to-morrow or Friday or the first o' next week." And away he went with long loose strides down the village street, while the leisurely wail of an old fuguing tune floated back after him, — HARBIET BEECHEB STOWE. 2S9 " Thy years are an Etarnal day, Thy years are an Etarnal day.'' "An eternal torment," said Aunt Lois, with a snap. "I'm sure, if there's a mortal creature on this earth that I pity, it's Hepsy Lawson. Folks talk about her scolding, — that Sam La-vO'son is enough to make the saints in Heaven fall from grace. And you can't do anything with him : it's like charging bayonet into a wool-sack." EVA AND TOPSY. "What's Eva going about, now ? " said St. Clare ; " I mean to see." And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a J^°^ °"^ ° ' Cabin. moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them. Topsy, with her usual air of careless drol- lery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes. " What does make you so bad, Topsy ? Why don't you try and be good ? Don't you love anybody, Topsy ? " " Dunno nothing 'bout love ; I loves" candy and sich, that's all," said Topsy. " But you love your father and mother ? " " Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that. Miss Eva." "0, I know," said Eva, sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or " — " No, none on 'em, — never had nothing nor nobody." " But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might " — " Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so good," said Topsy. " If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then." 2(J0 AMERICAN LITERATURE. " But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would love you, if you were good." Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of expressing incredulity. " Don't you think so ? " said Eva. " Xo ; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger ! — she'd's soon have a toad touch her ! There can't nobody love nig- gers, and niggers can't do nothin' ! I don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle. "0, Topsy, poor child, / love you!" said Eva, with a sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little, thin, white hand on Topsy's shoulder ; " I love you, because you haven't had any father, or mother, or friends ; — because you've been a poor, abused child ! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great while ; and it really grieves me, to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake ; — it's only a little while I shall be with you." The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears; — large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul ! She laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed, — while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner. " Poor Topsy ! " said Eva, " don't you know that Jesus loves all alike ? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do, — only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good ; and you can go to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it, Topsy ! — you can be one of those spirits bright. Uncle Tom sings about." " 0, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva ! " said the child ; "I will try, I will try; I never did care nothin' about it before." St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. " It puts HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 261 me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. "It is true what she told me ; if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did, — call them to us, andpwf our hands on them." "I've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss Ophelia, " and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me ; but I didn't think she knew it." " Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare ; " there's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart ; — it's a queer kind of fact, — but so it is." "I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; " they are disagreeable to me, — this child in particular ; — how can I help feeling so ? " "Eva does, it seems." " Well, she's so loving ! After all, though, she's no more than Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia ; " I wish I were like her. She might teach me a lesson." " It wouldn't be the first time a little child had been used to instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare. ROMANCE. All prosaic, and all bitter, disenchanted people talk as if novelists and poets made romance. They do, — just as much as craters make volcanoes, — no more. What is romance ? whence comes it ? Plato spoke to the ,_ subject wisely, in his quaint way, some two thou- -^oouig, sand years ago, when he said, "Man's soul, in a former state, was winged, and soared among the gods ; and so it comes to pass, that, in this life, when the soul, by the power of music or poetry, or the sight of beauty, hath her remembrance quickened, forthwith there is a struggling 262 AMERICAN LITERATURE. and a pricking pain as of wings trying to come forth, — even as cliildren in teething." And if an old heathen, two thousand years ago, discoursed thus gravely of the romantic part of our nature, whence comes it that in Christian lands we think in so pagan a way of it, and turn the whole care of it to ballad-makers, romancers, and opera^singers ? Let us look up in fear and reverence and say, " God is the great maker of romance. He, from whose hand came man and woman, — he, who strung the great harp of Exis- tence with all its wild and wonderful and manifold chords, and attuned them to one another, — he is the great Poet of life." Every impulse of beauty, of heroism, every craving for purer love, fairer perfection, nobler type and style of being than that which closes like a prison-house, around us, in the dim, daily walk of life, is God's breath, God's impulse, God's reminder to the soul that there is something higher, sweeter, purer, yet to be attained. Therefore, man or woman, when thy ideal is shattered, — as shattered a thousand times it must be, — when the vision fades, the rapture burns out, turn not away in scepticism and bitterness, saying, " There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink," but rather cherish the revelations of those hours as prophecies and foreshadow- ings of something real and possible, yet to be attained in the manhood of immortality. The scoffing spirit that laughs at romance is an apple of the Devil's own handing from the bitter tree of knowledge ; — it opens the eyes only to see eternal nakedness. If ever you have had a romantic, uncalculating friend- ship, — a boundless worship and belief in some hero of your soul, — if ever you have so loved, that all cold pru- dence, all selfish worldly considerations have gone down like driftwood before a river flooded with new rain from heaven, so that you even forgot yourself, and were ready to cast your whole being into the chasm of existence, as an offering before the feet of another, and all for nothing, if you awoke bitterly betrayed and deceived, still give thanks HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 263 to God that you have had one glimpse of heaven. The door now shut will open again. Eejoice that the noblest capability of your eternal inheritance has been made known to you ; treasure it as the highest honor of your being, that ever you could so feel, — that so divine a guest ever pos- sessed your soul. By siich experiences are we taught the pathos, the sacred- ness of life ; and if we use them wisely, our eyes will ever after be anointed to see what poems, what sublime trage- dies lie around us in the daily walks of life, "written not with ink, but in fleshy tables of the heart." The dullest street of the most prosaic town has matter in it for more smiles, more tears, more intense excitement, than ever were written in story or sung in poem ; the reality is there, of which the romancer is the second-hand recorder. 264 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 3on0S Ferg. [b. Salem, Massachusetts, August 28, 1813. d. May 8, 1880.] THE LOST. The fairest day that ever yet has shone Will be when thou the day within shalt see ; The fairest rose that ever yet has blown, When thou the flower thou lookest on shalt be ; But thou art far away amidst Time's toys ; Thyself the day thou lookest for in them, Thyself the flower that now thine eye enjoys ; But wilted now thou hang'st upon thy stem ; The bird thou hearest on the budding tree Thou hast made sing with thy forgotten voice ; But when it swells again to melody, The song is thine in which thou wilt rejoice ; And thou new risen 'midst these wonders, live, That now to them dost all thy substance give. TO THE HUMMING-BIRD. I cannot heal thy green gold breast, Where deep those cruel teeth have prest. Nor bid thee raise thy ruffled crest. And seek thy mate. Who sits alone within thy nest, Nor sees thy fate. No more with him in summer hours Thou'lt hum amid the leafy bowers, Nor hover round the dewy flowers, JONES VERY. 265 To feed thy young ; Nor seek, when evening darkly lowers, Thy nest high hung. ISTo more thou'lt know a mother's care Thy honied spoils at eve to share, Nor teach thy tender brood to dare, With upward spring. Their path through fields of siinny air, On new-fledged wing. For thy return in vain shall wait Thy tender young, thy fond, fond mate. Till night's last stars beam forth full late On their sad eyes, — Unknown, alas ! thy cruel fate, Unheard thy cries ! 266 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Lexington, Kentucky, 1819. d. May 5, 1881.] EL AMIN — THE FAITHFUL. Who is this that comes from Hara ? not in kingly pomp and pride, But a great, free son of Nature, lion-soul'd and eagle-eyed : Who is this before whose presence idols tumble to the sod? While he cries out, " Allah Akbar ! and there is no god but God ! " Wandering in the solemn desert, he has wonder'd like a child. Not as yet too proud to 'wonder, at the sun and star and wild. 0, thou Moon ! who made thy brightness ? Stars ! who hung ye there on high ? Answer ! so my soul may worship : I must worship, or I die. Then there fell the brooding silence that precedes the thun- der's roll : And the old Arabian Whirlwind called another Arab soul. Who is this that come from Hara ? not in kingly pomp and pride, But a great free son of Nature, lion-soul'd and eagle-eyed : He has stood and seen Mount Hara to the Awful Presence nod; He has heard from cloud and lightning, " Know there is no god but God!" Call ye this man "an impostor"? — He was called The Faithful, when A boy he wandered o'er the deserts, by the wild-eyed Arab men. WILLIAM EOSS WALLACE. 267 He -was al-ways call'd The Faithful. Truth he knew was Allah's breath ; But the Lie went darkly gnashing through the corridors of Death. " He was fierce ! " — Yes ! fierce at falsehood, — fierce at hideous bits of wood That the Koreish taught the people made the sun and solitude. But his heart was also gentle ; and affection's graceful palm, Waving in his tropic spirit, to the weary brought a balm. " Precepts ? " — Have on each compassion ! Lead the stranger to your door ! In your dealings keep up justice ! Give a tenth unto the poor! " Yet, ambitious ! " — Yes ! ambitious — while he heard the calm and sweet Aidenn-voices sing — to trample conquer'd Hell beneath his feet. " Islam ? " — Yes ! submit to heaven ! — " Prophet ? " — To the East thou art ! What are prophets but the trumpets blown by God to stir the heart ? And the great Heart of the Desert stirr'd unto that solemn strain Rolling from the trump at Hara, over Error's troubled main. And a hundred dusky millions honor still El Amin's rod. Daily chaunting — " Allah Akbar ! know there is no god but God ! " Call him, then, no more Impostor! Mecca is the Choral Gate Where, till Zion's noon shall take them, nations in the morning wait. 268 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 16, 1814. d. May 29, 1877.] ABDICATION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH. The palace where the states-general were upon this occa- sion convened, had been the residence of the Dukes of Bra- bant since the days of John the Second, who had Rise of the t^^^^^^ j^ ^bout the year 1300. It was a spacious Republic. ^^'^ convenient building, but not distinguished for the beauty of its architecture. In front was a large open square, enclosed by an iron railing ; in the rear an extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest trees, and containing gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game preserves, fountains and promenades, race-courses and arch- ery grounds. The main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious propor- tions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, representing the life and achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the " fieece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of the Fleece. On the present occasion there were various additional embellishments of fiowers and votive garlands. At the western end a spaciovis platform or stage, with six or seven steps, had been constructed, below which was a range of benches for the deputies of the seventeen provinces. Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats, covered with tap- estry, upon the right hand and upon the left. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 269 These were respectively to accommodate the knights of the order and the guests of high distinction. In the rear of tliese were other benches, for the menrbers of the three great councils. In the centre of the stage was a splendid canopy, decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were placed three gilded arm-chairs. All the seats upon the platform were vacant; but the benches below, assigned to the deputies of the provinces, were already filled. Numerous representatives from all the states but two — Gelderland and Overyssel — had already taken their places. Grave magistrates, in chain and gown, and execu- tive officers in the splendid civic uniforms for which the Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat within the space allotted. The remainder of the hall was crowded with the more favored portion of the multitude which had been fortunate enough to procure admission to the exhibition. The archers and halle-bardiers of the body-guard kept watch at all the doors. The theatre was filled — the audience was eager with expectation — the actors were yet to arrive. As the clock struck three, the hero of the scene appeared. Caesar, as he was always designated in the classic language of the day, entered, leaning on the shoulder of William of Orange. They came from the chapel, and were immediately followed by Philip the Second and Queen Mary of Hungary. The Archduke Maximilian, the Duke of Savoy, and other great person- ages came afterwards, accompanied by a glittering throng of warriors, councillors, governors, and Knights of the Fleece. Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity in the Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the stu- dent of the epoch, seemed to have been grouped, as if by premeditated design, upon this imposing platform, where the curtain was to fall forever upon the mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, and where the opening scene of the long and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reign was to be simulta- neously enacted. . . . 270 AMERICAN' LITERATURE. All the company present had risen to their feet as the emperor entered. By his command, all immediately after- wards resumed their places. The benches at either end of the platform were accordingly filled with the royal and princely personages invited, with the Fleece Knights, wear- ing the insignia of their order, with the members of the three great councils, and with the governors. The Emperor, the King, and the Queen of Hungary, were left conspicuous in the centre of the scene. As the whole object of the ceremony was to present an impressive exhibition, it is worth our while to examine minutely the appearance of the two principal characters. Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months old, but he was already decrepit with premature old age. He was of about the middle height, and had been ath- letic and well proportioned. Broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, thin in the flank, very muscular in the arms and legs, he had been able to match himself with all competitors in the tourney and the ring, and to vanquish the bull with his own hand in the favorite national amusement of Spain. He had been able in the field to do the duty of captain and soldier, to endure fatigue and exposure, and every privation except fasting. These personal advantages were now de- parted. Crippled in hands, knees and legs, he supported himself with difftculty upon a crutch, with the aid of an at- tendant's shoulder. In face he had always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not improved his physiognomy. His hair, once of a light color, was now white with age, close-clipped and bristling ; his beard was gray, coarse, and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding ; the eye was dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and benignant. His nose was aquiline but crooked. The lower part of his face was famous for its deformity. The under lip, a Burgundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as the duchy and county, was heavy and hanging ; the lower jaw protruding so far beyond the upper, that it was impos- sible for him to bring together the few fragments of teeth JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 271 ■which, still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human, but rather an original deformity. So much for the father. The son, Philip the Second, was a small, meagre man, much below the middle height, with thin legs, a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of an habitual invalid. He seemed so little, upon his first visit to his aunts, the Queens Eleanor and Mary, accustomed to look upon proper men in Elanders and Germany, that he was fain to win their favor by making certain attempts in the tournament, in which his success was sufficiently prob- lematical. " His body," says his professed panegyrist, " was but a human cage, in which, however brief and narrow, dwelt a soul to whose flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven was too contracted." The same wholesale admirer adds, that "his aspect was so reverend, that rustics who met him alone in the wood, without knowing him, bowed down with instinctive veneration." In face, he was the liv- ing image of his father, having the same broad forehead, and blue eye, with the same aquiline, but better propor- tioned nose. In the lower part of the countenance, the remarkable Burgundian deformity was likewise reproduced. He had the same heavy hanging lip, with a vast mouth, and monstrously protruding lower jaw. His complexion was fair, his hair light and thin, his beard yellow, short, and pointed. He had the aspect of a Fleming, but the loftiness of a Spaniard. His demeanor in public was still, silent, almost sepulchral. He looked habitually on the ground when he conversed, was chary of speech, embarrassed, and even suffering in manner. This was ascribed partly to a natural haughtiness which he had occasionally endeavored to overcome, and partly to habitual pains in the stomach, occasioned by his inordinate fondness for pastry. Such was the personal appearance of the man who was about to receive into his single hand the destinies of half 272 AMERICAN LITERATURE. the -world ; whose single will was, for the future, to shape the fortunes of every individual then present, of many mil- lions more in Europe, America, and at the ends of the earth, and of countless millions yet unborn. The three royal personages being seated upon chairs placed triangularly under the canopy, such of the audience as had seats provided for them, now took their places, and the proceedings commenced. Philibert de Bruxelles, a mem- ber of the privy council of the Netherlands, arose at the emperor's command, and made a long oration. . . . As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration throughout the assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, that in the present great danger upon the frontiers from the belligerent King of France and his warlike and restless nation, the provinces should be left without their ancient and puissant defender. The emperor then arose to his feet. Leaning on his crutch, he beckoned from his seat the per- sonage upon whose arm he had leaned as he entered the hall. A tall handsome youth of twenty-two came forward — a man whose name from that time forward, and as long as history shall endure, has been, and will be, more familiar than any other in the mouths of N"etherlanders. At that day he had rather a southern than a German or Flemish appearance. He had a Spanish cast of features, dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical. His head was small and well placed upon his shoulders. His hair was dark- brown, as were also his moiistache and peaked beard. His forehead was lofty, spacious, and already prematurely en- graved with the anxious lines of thought. His eyes were full, brown, well opened, and expressive of profound reflec- tion. He was dressed in the magnificent apparel for which the Netherlanders were celebrated above all other nations, and which the ceremony rendered necessary. His presence being considered indispensable at this great ceremony, he had been summoned but recently from the camp on the frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the emperor had JOHSr LOTHROP MOTLEY. 273 appointed him to command his army in chief against such antagonists as Admiral Coligny and tlie Due de Nevers. Thus supported upon his crutch and upon the slioulder of William of Orange, the emperor proceeded to address the states, by the aid of a closely-written brief which he held in his hand. He reviewed rapidly the progress of events from his seventeenth year up to that day. He spoke of his nine expeditions into Germany, six to Spain, seven to Italy, four to France, ten to the Netherlands, two to Eng- land, as many to Africa, and of his eleven voyages by sea. He sketched his various wars, victories, and treaties of peace, assuring his hearers that the welfare of his subjects and the security of the Roman Catholic religion had ever been the leading object of his life. As long as God had granted him health, he continued, only enemies could have regret- ted that Charles was living and reigning, but now that his strength was but vanity, and life fast ebbing away, his love for dominion, his affection for his subjects, and his regard for their interests, required his departure. Instead of a decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he presented them with a sovereign in the prime of life and the vigor of health. Turning toward Philip, he observed, that for a dying father to bequeath so magnificent an empire to his son was a deed worthy of gratitude, but that when the father thus descended to the grave before his time, and by an anticipated and living burial sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the grandeur of his son, the benefit thus con- ferred was surely far greater. He added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, should Philip conduct himself in his administration of the province with a wise and affectionate regard to their true interests. Posterity would applaud his abdication, should his son prove worthy of his bounty ; and that could only be by living in the fear of God, and by maintaining law, justice, and the Catholic religion in all their purity, as the true foundation of the realm. In conclusion, he entreated the estates, and through 274 AMERICAN LITERATURE. them the nation, to render obedience to their new prince, to maintain concord, and to preserve inviolate the Catholic faith; begging them at the same time, to pardon him aR errors or offences which he might have committed towards them during his reign, and assuring them that he should unceasingly remember their obedience and affection in his every prayer to that Being to whom the remainder of his life was to be dedicated. Such brave words as these, so many vigorous assevera- tions of attempted performance of duty, such fervent hopes expressed of a benign administration in behalf of the son, "could not but affect the sensibilities of the audience, already excited and softened by the impressive character of the whole display. Sobs were heard throughout every portion of the hall, and tears poured profusely from every eye. The Fleece Knights on the platform and the burghers in the background were all melted with the same emotions. As for the emperor himself, he sank almost fainting upon his chair as he concluded his address. An ashy pale- ness overspread his countenance, and he wept like a child. Even the icy Philip was almost softened, as he rose to per- form his part of the ceremony. Dropping upon his knees before his father's feet, he reverently kissed his hand. Charles placed his hands solemnly upon his son's head, made the sign of the cross, and blessed him in the name of the Holy Trinity. Then raising him in his arms he ten- derly embraced him, saying, as he did so, to the great poten- tates around him, that he felt a sincere compassion for the son on whose shoulders so heavy a weight had just devolved, and which only a life-long labor would enable him to support. RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR. 275 Eidjarlr l^ettrg ©ana, 3r, [b. Cambridge, Massacbusetts, August 1, 181S. d. January 7, 1882.] FLOGGING. The crew and officers foUo-wed the captain up the hatch- way ; but it was not until after repeated orders that the mate laid hold of Sam, who made no resistance, and carried him to the gangway. ■'•^° ^'"' «TnTi. 4- ? 4. fl 4.1, 4. f Before the "What are you going to iiog that man ior, jj^^^^ sir ? " said John, the Swede, to the captain. Upon hearing this, the captain turned upon John ; but, knowing him to be quick and resolute, he ordered the steward to bring the irons, and calling upon Russell to help him, went up to John. "Let me alone," said John. "I'm willing to be put in irons. You need not use any force " ; and, putting out his hands, the captain slipped the irons on, and sent him aft to the quarter-deck. Sam, by this time, was seized up, as it is called, that is, placed against the shrouds, with his wrists made fast to them, his jacket off, and his back exposed. The captain stood on the break of the deck, a few feet from him, and a little raised, so as to have a good swing at him, and held in his hand the end of a thick, strong rope. The officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in the waist. All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man — a human being, made in God's likeness — fastened up and flogged like a beast ! A man, too, whom I had lived with, eaten with, and stood watch with for months, and knew so well ! If a thought of resistance crossed the minds of any of the men, what was to be done ? Their time for it had gone by. Two men were fast, and there were left only two 276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. men besides Stimpson and myself, and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age ; and Stimpson and I would not have joined the men in a mutiny, as they knew. And then, on the other side, there were (beside the captain) three of&cers, steward, agent, and clerk, and the cabin supplied with weapons. But beside the numbers, what is there for sailors to do? If they resist, it is mutiny; and if they succeed, and take the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must come ; and if they do not yield, what are they to be for the rest of their lives ? If a sailor resist his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission is his only alternative. Bad as it was, they saw it must be borne. It is what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope over his head, and bending his body so as to give it full force, the captain brought it down upon the poor fellow's back. Once, twice, — six times. " Will you ever give me any more of your jaw ? " The man writhed with pain, but said not a word. Three times more. This was too much, and he muttered something which I could not hear; this brought as many more as the man could stand, when the captain ordered him to be cut down, and to go forward. BAYABD TAYLOR. 277 Bagarti Sailor. [b. Cliester County, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1325. d. December 19, 1878.] LOVE RETURNED. He was a boy when first we met ; His eyes were mixed of dew and fire, And on Ms caMid brow was set The sweetness of a chaste desire : But in his veins the pulses beat Of passion, waiting for its wing, As ardent veins of summer heat Throb through the innocence of spring. As manhood came, his stature grew. And fiercer burned his restless eyes. Until I trembled, as he drew From wedded hearts their young disguise. Like wind-fed flame his ardor rose. And brought, like flame, a stormy rain : In tumult sweeter than repose, He tossed the souls of joy and pain. So many years of absence change ! I knew him not when he returned : His step was slow, his brow was strange. His quiet eye no longer burned. When at my heart I heard his knock, No voice within his right confessed : I could not venture to unlock Its chambers to an alien guest. 278 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Then, at the threshold, spent and worn With fruitless travel, down he lay : And I beheld the gleams of morn On his reviving beauty play. I knelt and kissed his holy lips, I washed his feet with pious care ; And from my life the long eclipse Drew off, and left his sunshine there. He burns no more with youthful fire ; He melts no more in foolish tears ; Serene and sweet, his eyes inspire The steady faith of balanced years. His folded wings no longer thrill, But in some peaceful flight of prayer : He nestles in my heart so still, I scarcely feel his presence there. Love, that stern probation o'er, Thy calmer blessing is secure ! Thy beauteous feet shall stray no more. Thy peace and patience shall endure ! The lightest wind deflowers the rose, The rainbow with the sun departs. But thou art centred in repose. And rooted in my heart of hearts ! BEDOUIN SONG. From the Desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire : And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry : BAYARD TAYLOR. 279 I love thee, I loTe but thee, With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold. And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! Look from thy window and see My passion and my pain ; I lie on the sands below. And I faint in thy disdain. Let the night-winds touch thy brow With the heat of my burning sigh, And melt thee to hear the vow Of a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold. And the stars are old. And the leaves of the Judgment Book uhfold ! My steps are nightly driven, By the fever in my breast, To hear from thy lattice breathed The word that shall give me rest. Open the door of thy heart, And open thy chamber door. And my kisses shall teach thy lips The love that shall fade no more Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! 280 AMERICAN LITERATURE. THE SONG OF THE CAMP. " Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, The outer trenches guarding, When the heated guns of the camps allied Grew weary of bombarding. The dark Eedan, in silent scoff, Lay grim and threatening under ; And the tawny mound of the Malakoff No longer belched its thunder. There was a pause. A guardsman said, " We storm the forts to-morrow. Sing while we may ; another day Will bring enough of sorrow." They lay along the battery's side. Below the smoking cannon : Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, And from the banks of Shannon. They sang of love, and not of fame ; Forgot was Britain's glory : Each heart recalled a different name, But all sang " Annie Laurie." Voice after voice caught up the song. Until its tender passion Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, — Their battle-eve confession. Dear girl, her name he dared not speak. But, as the song grew louder. Something upon the soldier's cheek Washed off the stains of powder. BAYARD TAYLOR. 281 Beyond the darkening ocean burned The bloody sunset's embers, While the Crimean valleys learned How English love remembers. And once again a fire of hell Eaiaed on the Russian quarters, With scream of shot, and burst of shell, And bellowing of the mortars ! And Irish Nora's eyes are dim For a singer, dumb and gory ; And English Mary mourns for him Who sang of " Annie Laurie." Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest Your truth and valor wearing ; The bravest are the tenderest, — The loving are the daring. FROM "THE PINES." Ancient Pines, Ye bear no record of the years of man. Spring is your sole historian, — Spring that paints These savage shores with hues of Paradise ; That decks your branches with a fresher green. And through your lonely far canadas pours Her floods of bloom, rivers of opal dye That wander down to lakes and widening seas Of blossom and of fragrance, — laughing Spring, That with her wanton blood refills her veins. And weds ye to your juicy youth again With a new ring, the while your rifted bark Drops odorous tears. Your knotty fibres yield 282 AMERICAN LITERATURE. To the light touch of her unfailing pen, As freely as the lupin's violet cup. Ye keep, close-locked, the memories of her stay, As in their shells the avelon^s keep Morn's rosy flush and moonlight's pearly glow. The wild northwest that from Alaska sweeps To drown Point Lobos with the icy scud And white sea-foam, may rend your boughs and leave Their blasted antlers tossing in the gale ; Your steadfast hearts are mailed against the shock, And on their annual tablets naught inscribe Of such rude visitation. Ye are still The simple children of a guiltless soil, And in your natures show the sturdy grain That passion cannot jar, nor force relax, Nor aught but sweet and kindly airs compel To gentler mood. No disappointed heart Has sighed its bitterness beneath your shade, No angry spirit ever came to make Your silence its confessional ; no voice. Grown harsh in Crime's great market-place, the world, Tainted with blasphemy your evening hush. And aromatic air. The deer alone, — The ambushed hunter that brings down the deer, The fisher wandering on the misty shore To watch sea-lions wallow in the flood, — The shout, the sound of hoofs that chase and fly, When swift vaqueros, dashing through the herds, Eide down the angry bull, — perchance, the song Some Indian heired of long-forgotten sires, — Disturb your solemn chorus. WENDELL PHILLIPS. 28S Wtnazll iljilUps. [b. Boston, Massachusetts, November 29, 1811. d. February 2, 1884.] THE DUTY OF SCHOLARSHIP. Fifty millions of men God gives us to mould; burning questions, keen debate, great interests trying to vindicate their right to be, sad wrongs brought to the bar of public judgment, — these are the people's schools. ^^^ -^^'^ Timid scholarship either shrinks from sharing in ijj^^g^'igsi, these agitations, or denounces them as vulgar and dangerous interference by incompetent hands with matters above them. A chronic distrust of the people pervades the book-educated class of the North; they shrink from the free speech which is God's normal school for educating men, throwing upon them the grave responsibility of de- ciding great questions, and so lifting them to a higher level of intellectual and moral life. Trust the people — the wise and the ignorant, the good and the bad — with the gravest questions, and in the end you educate the race ; while you secure, not perfect institutions, not necessarily good ones, but the best institutions possible while human nature is the basis and the only material to build with. Men are educated and the State uplifted by allowing all — every one — to broach all their mistakes and advocate all their errors. The community that will not protect its humblest, most ignorant, and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves ! Anareharsis went into the Archon's court at Athens, heard a case argued by the great men of that city, and saw the vote by five hundred men. Walking in the streets, 284 AMERICAN LITERATURE. some one asked him, "What do you think of Athenian liberty? " "I think," said he, "wise men argue cases, and fools decide them." Just what that timid scholar, two thousand years ago, said in the streets of Athens, that which calls itself scholarship here says to-day of popular agitation, — that it lets wise men argue questions and fools decide them. But that Athens where fools decided the gravest questions of policy and of right and wrong, where property you had gathered wearily to-day might be wrung from you by the caprice of the mob to-morrow, — that very Athens probably secured the greatest amount of human hap- piness and nobleness of its era; invented art, and sounded for us the depths of philosophy. God lent to it the largest intellects, and it flashes to-day the torch that gilds yet the mountain-peaks of the Old World : while Egypt, the hunker conservative of antiquity, where nobody dared to differ from the priest, or to be wiser than his grandfather; where men pretended to be alive, though swaddled in the grave-clothes of creed and custom as close as their mummies were in linen, — that Egypt is hid in the tomb it inhabited, and the in- tellect Athens has trained for us digs to-day those ashes to find out what buried and forgotten hunkerism knew and did Suppose that universal suffrage endangered peace and threatened property. There is something more valuable than wealth, there is something more sacred than peace. As Humboldt says, " The finest fruit earth holds, up to its Maker is a man." To ripen, lift, and educate a man is the first duty. Trade, law, learning, science, and religion are only the scaffolding wherewith to build a man. Despotism looks down into the poor man's cradle, and knows it can crush resistance and curb ill will. Democracy sees the ballot in that baby hand ; and selfishness bids her put in- tegrity on one side of those baby footsteps and intelligence on the other, lest her own hearth be in peril. Thank God for his method of taking bonds of wealth and culture to share all their blessings with the humblest soul he gives to their WENDELL PHILLIPS. 285 keeping ! The American should cherish as serene a faith as his fathers had. Instead of seeking a coward safety by battening down the hatches, and putting men back into chains, he should recognize that God places him in this peril that he may work out a noble security by concentrating all moral forces to lift this weak, rotting, and dangerous mass into sunlight and health. The fathers touched their highest level when, with stout-hearted and serene faith, they trusted God that it was safe to leave men with all the rights he gave them. Let us be worthy of their blood, and save this sheet-anchor of the race, — universal suffrage, — God's church, God's school, God's method of gently binding men into commonwealths, in order that they may at last melt into brothers. 286 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Litchfield, Connecticut, Jane 24, 1813. d. March 8, 1887.] STRENGTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. If you measure a man by the skill that he can exhibit, and the fruit of it, there is great distinction between one and another. Men are not each worth the same thing TheSnooess ^q society. All men cannot think with a like Bemooracv ^^-^^^j ^^"^ work with a like product. And if you measure man as a producing creature — that is, in his secular relations — men are not alike valuable. But when you measure men on their spiritual side, and in their affectional relations to God and the eternal world, the low- est man is so immeasurable in value that you cannot make any practical difference between one man and another. Although, doubtless, some are vastly above, the lowest and least goes beyond your powers of conceiving, and your power of measuring. This is the root idea, which, if not recognized, is yet operative. It is the fundamental princi- ple of our American scheme, that is, Man is above nature. Man, by virtue of his original endowment and affiliation to the Eternal Father, is superior to every other created thing. There is nothing to be compared with man. All govern- ments are from him and for him, and not over him and upon him. All institutions are not his masters, but his servants. All days, all ordinances, all usages, come to min- ister to the chief and the king, — God's son, man, of whom God only is master. Therefore he is to be thoroughly enlarged, thoroughly empowered by development, and then thoroughly trusted. This is the American idea, — for we stand in contrast with the world in holding and teaching it ; that men, having been once thoroughly educated, are to be absolutely trusted. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 287 The education of the common people follows, then, as a necessity. They are to be fitted to govern. Since all things are from them and for them, they must be educated to their function, to their destiny. No pains are spared, we know, in Europe, to educate princes and nobles who are to govern. No expense is counted too great, in Europe, to prepare the governing classes for their function. America has her governing class, too; and that governing class is the whole people. It is a slower work, because it is so much larger. It is never carried so high, because there is so much more of it. It is easy to lift up a crowned class. It is not easy to lift up society from the very foun- dation. That is the work of centuries. And, therefore, though we have not an education so deep nor so high as it is in some other places, we have it broader than it is any- where else in the world ; and we have learned that, for ordi- nary affairs, intelligence among the common people is better than treasures of knowledge among particular classes of the people. School books do more for the country than encyclopsedias. And so there comes up the American conception of a common people as an order of nobility, or as standing in the same place to us that orders of nobility stand to other peoples. Not that, after our educated men and men of genius are counted out, we call all that remain the common people. The whole community, top and bottom and inter- mediate, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the leaders and the followers, constitute with us the com- monwealth ; in which laws spring from the people, admin- istration conforms to their wishes, and they are made the final judges of every interest of the State. In America, there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion. Art, law, administration, policy, reformation of morals, religious teaching, all derive, in our form of society, the most potent influence from the common people. Eor al- though the common people are educated in preconceived 288 AMERICAN LITERATURE. notions of religion, the great intuitions and instincts of tlie heart of man rise up afterwards, and in their turn influence back. So there is action and reaction. It is this very thing that has led men that are educated, in Europe, to doubt the stability of our nation. Owing to a strange ignorance on their part, our glory has seemed to them our shame, and our strength has seemed to them our weakness, and our invincibility has seemed to them our disaster and defeat. This impression of Europeans has been expressed in England in language that has surprised us, and that one day will surprise them. We know more of it in England because the English language is our mother tongue, and we are more concerned to know what England thinks of us, than any other nation. But it is impossible that nations educated into sympathy with strong governments, and with the side of those that govern, should sympathize with the governed. In this country the sympathy goes with the governed, and not with the governing, as much as in the other countries it goes with the governing, and not with the governed. And abroad, they are measuring by a false rule, and by a home- bred and one-sided sympathy. It is impossible for men who have not seen it to under- stand that there is no society possible, that will bear such expansion and contraction, such strains and burdens, as a society made up of free educated common people, with democratic institutions. It has been supposed that such a society was the most unsafe, and the least capable of con- trol of any. But whether tested by external pressure, or, as now, by the most wondrous internal evils, an educated demo- cratic people is the strongest government that can be made on the face of the earth. In no other form of society is it so safe to set discussion at large. Nowhere else is there such safety in the midst of apparent conflagration. Nowhere else is there such entire rule^ when there seems to be such entire anarchy. HENRY WARD BEEOHER. 'AS% A foreigner would think, pending a presidential election, that the end of the world had come. The people roar and dash like an ocean. " No government," he would say, " was ever strong enough to hold such wild and tumultuous enthu- siasm, and zeal, and rage." True. There is not a govern- ment strong enough to hold them. Nothing but self-govern- ment will do it: that will. Educate men to take care of themselves, individually and in masses, and then let the winds blow ; then let the storms fall ; then let excitements burn, and men will learn to move freely upon each other, as do drops of water in the ocean. Our experience from generation to generation has shown that, though we may have fantastic excitements; though the whole land may seem to have swung from its moorings on a sea of the wildest agitation, we have only to let the silent-dropping paper go into the box, and that is the end of the commotion. To-day, the flames mount to heaven ; and on every side you hear the most extravagant prophecies and the fiercest objur- gations ; and both sides know that, if they do not succeed, the end of the world will have come. But to-morrow the vote is declared, and each side go home laughing, to take hold of the plough and the spade ; and they are satisfied that the nation is safe after all. 290 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Highgate, Vermont, June 2, 1816. d. March 31, 1887.] MY CASTLE IN SPAIN. There's a castle in Spain very charming to see, Though built without money or toil ; Of this handsome estate I am owner in fee, And paramount lord of the soil ; And oft as I may I'm accustomed to go And live, like a king, in my Spanish Chateau. There's a dame most bewitchingly rounded and ripe Whose wishes are never absurd ; Who doesn't object to my smoking a pipe, Nor insist on the ultimate word ; In short, she's the pink of perfection, you know ; And she lives, like a queen, in my Spanish Chateau ! I've a family too ; the delightfulest girls. And a bevy of beautiful boys ; All quite the reverse of those juvenile churls Whose pleasure is mischief and noise ; No modern Cornelia might venture to show Such jewels as those in my Spanish Chateau ! I have servants who seek their contentment in mine, And always mind what they are at ; Who never embezzle the sugar and wine, And slander the innocent cat ; Neither saucy, nor careless, nor stupidly slow Are the servants who wait in my Spanish Chateau ! JOHN GODFREY SAKE. 291 I have pleasant companions ; most affable folk ; And each with the heart of a brother ; Keen wits, who enjoy an antagonist's joke, And beauties who're fond of each other ; Such people, indeed, as you never may know. Unless you should come to my Spanish Chateau ! I have friends, whose commission for wearing the name In kindness unfailing is shown ; Who pay to another the duty they claim, And deem his successes their own ; Who joy in his gladness, and weep at his woe ; You'll find them (where else ?) in my Spanish Chateau ! si sic semper ! I oftentimes say (Though 'tis idle, I know, to complain), To think that again I must force me away From my beautiful castle in Spain ! Ah ! would that my stars had determined it so 1 might live the year round in my Spanish Chateau ! 292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. Gloucester, Massachusetts, March 8, 1819. d. June 16, 1886.] WEBSTER AND CALHOUN. If we compare Webster with Calhoun, we shall find in both the same firm mental grasp of principles, the same oversight of the means of popularity, and the "^^ . same ungraceful and almost sullen self-assertion, at jj^3 periods when policy would have dictated a more facile accommodativeness. Their intellects, though both in some degree entangled by local interests, and opin- ions, have inherent differences, visible at a glance. Web- ster's mind has more massiveness than Calhoun's, is richer in culture and variety of faculty, and is gifted with a wider sweep of argumentation ; but it is not so completely com- pacted with character, and has, accordingly, less infiexible and untiring persistence toward an object. Both are com- paratively unimpressible, but Webster's understanding rec- ognizes and includes facts which his imagination may refuse to assimilate ; while Calhoun arrogantly ignores everything which contradicts his favorite opinions. The mind of Web- ster, weighty, solid, and capacious, looks before and after ; by its insight reads principles in events, by its foresight reads events in princij^les ; and, arching gloriously over all the phenomena of a widely complex subject of contempla^ tion, views things, not simply, but in their multitudinous relations ; yet the very comprehension of his vision makes him somewhat timid, and his moderation accordingly lacks the crowning grace of moral audacity. Calhoun has audac- ity, but lacks comprehensiveness. . . . If we carefully study the speeches of Webster and Cal- houn, in one of those great Congressional battles where they EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE. 293 "Were fairly pitted against each other, we shall find that Webster's mind darts beneath the smooth and rapid stream of his opponent's deductive argument at a certain point, — fastens fatally on some phrase, or fact, or admission, in ■which the fallacy lurks, — and then devotes his reply to a searching analysis and logical overthrow of that, without heediag the rest. Calhoun, of course, has the ready re- joinder that the thing demolished is twisted out of its rela^ tions ; and then, with admirable control of his face, proceeds to dip into Webster's inductive argument, to extract some fact or principle which is indissolubly related to what goes before and comes after, and thus really misrepresents the reasoning he seemingly answers. To overthrow Calhoun you have, like Napoleon at Wagram, only to direct a tre- mendous blow at the centre; to overthrow Webster, like Napoleon at Borodino, you must rout the whole line. In the style of the two men we have, perhaps, the best expression of their character; for style, it has been well said, " is the measure of power, — as the waves of the sea answer to the winds that call them up." Webster's style varies with the moods of his mind, — short, crisp, biting, in sarcasm ; luminous and even in statement ; rigid, con- densed,' massive, in argumentation ; lofty and resounding in feeling; fierce, hot, direct, overwhelming, in passion. Calhoun's has the uniform vigor and clear precision of a spoken essay. 294 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Bgron jForwgtlje OTillson. [b. Alleghany County, New York, April 10, 1837. d. February 2, 1867.] THE LAST WATCH. The stars shine down through the shivering boughs, And the moonset sparks against the spire ; There is not a light in a neighbor's house, Save one that burneth low, And seemeth almost spent ! With shadowy forms in dark attire Flickering in it to and fro. As if in pain and doubt — And heads bow'd down in tears ! Hark! Was there not lament? — Behold, behold the light burns out ! The picture disappears ! Ye who with such sleepless sleight, In the chamber out of sight. Whispering low. To and fro, Your swift needles secretly At the dead of night do ply, — What is it that ye sew ? "Hark! hark! Heard ye not the sounds aloof, As of winds or wings that swept the roof ? Band of heavenly voices blending, Choir of seraphim ascending ? Hark! hark! BYRON FORCEYTHE WILLSON. 295 Away ! away ! Behold, behold it is the day ! Bear her softly out of the door ; And upward, upward, upward soar ! " THE ESTRAY. " Now tell me, my merry woodman ! Why standest so aghast ? " — "My Lord ! — 'twas a beautiful creature That hath but just gone past ! " — " A creature — what kind of a creature ? " — " Nay, now, but I do not know ! " — " Humph ! — what did it make you think of ? " - " The sunshine or the snow." -.— " I shall overtake my horse then." The woodman open'd his eye : The gold fell all around him, And a rainbow spanned the sky. AUTUMN SONG. In Spring the Poet is glad. And in Summer the Poet is gay ; But in Autumn the Poet is sad. And has something sad to say : For the Wind moans in the Wood, And the Leaf drops from the Tree j And the cold Eain falls on the graves of the Good, And the Mist comes up from the Sea : 296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. And the Autumn Songs of the Poet's soul Are set to the passionate grief Of Winds that sough and Bells that toll The Dirge of the Falling Leaf. DAVID ATWOOD WASSON. 297 39aJjtlr ^ttoooli TOasson. [b. Weet Brooksville, Maine, May 14, 1823. d. January 21, 1387.] ALL'S WELL. SwBET-voicBD HopB, thy fine discourse Foretold not half life's good to me : Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force To show how sweet it is to be ! Thy witching dream And pictured scheme To match the fact still want the power : Thy promise brave From birth to grave Life's boon may beggar in an hour. Ask and receive, — 'tis sweetly said: Yet what to plead for, know I not ; For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped, And aye to thanks returns my thought. If I would pray, I've naught to say But this, that God may be God still; For him to live Is still to give. And sweeter than my wish his will. wealth of life beyond all bound ! Eternity each moment given ! What plummet may the Present sound ? Who promises a future heaven ? Or glad, or grieved, Oppressed, relieved, 298 AMERICAN LITERATURE. In blackest night, or brightest day, Still pours the flood Of golden good. And more than heartful fills me aye. My wealth is common ; I possess No petty province, but the whole : What's mine alone is mine far less Than treasure shared by every soul. Talk not of store. Millions or more, — Of values which the purse may hold, — But this divine ! I own the mine Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold. I have a stake in every star, In every beam that fills the day ; All hearts of men my coffers are. My ores arterial tides convey ; The fields, the skies. And sweet replies Of thought to thought are my gold-dust, ■ The oaks, the brooks. And speaking looks Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust. Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow For him who lives above all years. Who all-immortal makes the ISTow, And is not ta'en in Time's arrears : His life's a hymn The seraphim Might hark to hear or help to sing, And to his soul The boundless whole Its bounty all doth daily bring. DAVID ATWOOD WASSON. 299 " All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith ; " The wealth I am, must then become : Eicher and richer, breath by breath, — Immortal gain, immortal room ! " And since all his Mine also is, Life's gift outruns my fancies far. And drowns the dream In larger stream, As morning drinks the morning star. 300 AMEBIC AST LITERATURE. Cijrtstopljer Pcarsc €xm,t% [b. Alexandria, Virginia, March 8, 1813.] WRITTEN AT SORRENTO. The wild waves madly dash and roar, In thunder-throbs upon the beach ; Their broad white hands upon the shore They struggle evermore to reach. Up through the cavernous rocks amain, With short, hoarse growl, they plunge and leap, Like an arm'd host, again and again, Battering some castellated steep. Great pulses of the ocean heart. Beating from out immensity ! What mystic news would ye impart From the great spirit of the sea ? Ever, in still-increasing force. Earnest as cries of love or hate. Your large and eloquent discourse Is mighty as the march of fate. I sit alone on the glowing sand, Eill'd with the music of your speech, And only half may understand The wondrous lore that ye would teach. The sea-weed and the shells are wise. And versed in your broad Sanscrit tongue ; The rocks need not our ears and eyes To comprehend the under-song. CHRISTOPHER PEARSE GRANGH. 301 The ocean and the shore are one ; The rocks and trees that hang above, The birds and insects in the sun, Are lihk'd in one strong tie of love. Would that I might with freedom be A seer into your hidden truth, Joining your firm fraternity. To drink with you perpetual youth ! 302 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. BoBton, Massachusetts, October 8, 1816.] LOVE DISPOSED OF. Here goes Love ! Now, cut him clear, A -weight about Ms neck : If he linger longer here, Our ship will be a wreck. Overboard ! Overboard ! Down let htm go ! In the deep he may sleep. Where the corals grow. He said he'd woo the gentle breeze, A bright tear in her eye ; But she was false or hard to please. Or he has told a lie. Overboard ! Overboard ! Down in the sea He may find a truer mind, Where the mermaids be. He sang us many a merry song. While the breeze was kind : But he has been lamenting long The falseness of the wind. Overboard ! Overboard ! Under the wave, Let him sing where smooth shells ring In the ocean's cave. ROBERT TRAIL SPENCE LOWELL. 303 He may struggle ; he may weep ; We'll be stern and cold ; His grief will find, within the deep, More tears than can be told. He has gone overboard ! We will float on ; We shall find a truer wind, Now that he is gone. 304 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [b. New Haven, Connecticut, September 22, 1828. d. June 10, 1861.] A GALLOP OF THREE. It was a vast desert level ■where we were riding. Here and there a scanty tuft of grass appeared, to prove that Nar ture had tried her benign experiment, and wafted John Brent, seeds hither to let the scene be verdant, if it would. Nature had failed. The land refused any mantle over its brown desolation. The soil was disintegrated, igne- ous rock, fine and well beaten down as the most thoroughly laid Macadam. Behind was the rolling region where the Great Trail passes ; before and far away, the faint blue of the Sierra. Not a bird sang in the hot noon ; not a cricket chirped. No sound except the beat of our horses' hoofs on the pavement. We rode side by side, taking our strides together. It was a waiting race. The horses travelled easily. They learned, as a horse with a self-possessed rider will, that they were not to waste strength in rushes. " Spend, but waste not," — not a slip, not a breath, in that gallop for life! This must be our motto. We three rode abreast over the sere, brown plain on our gallop to save and to slay. Far — ah, how terribly dim and distant ! — was the Sierra, a slowly lifting cloud. Slowly, slowly they lifted, those gracious heights, while we sped over the harsh levels of the desert. Harsh levels, abandoned or unvisited by verdancy. But better so; there was no long herbage to check our great pace over the smooth race-course ; no thickets here to baifle us ; no forests to mislead. We galloped abreast, — Armstrong at the right. His THEODORE WINTHROP. 305 weird, gaunt white held his own with the best of us. No whip, no spur, for that deathly creature. He went as if his master's purpose were stirring him through and through. That stern intent made his sinews steel, and put an agony of power into every stride. The man never stirred, save sometimes to put a hand to that bloody blanket bandage across his head and temple. He had told his story, he had spoken his errand, he breathed not a word ; but, with his lean, pallid face set hard, his gentle blue eyes scourged of their kindliness, and iixed upon those distant mountains where his vengeance lay, he rode on like a relentless fate. Next in the line I galloped. my glorious black ! The great, killing pace seemed mere playful canter to him, — such as one might ride beside a timid girl, thrilling with her first free dash over a flowery common, or a golden beach between sea and shore. But from time to time he surged a little forward with his great shoulders, and gave a mighty writhe of his body, while his hind legs came lifting his flanks under me, and telling of the giant reserve of speed and power he kept easily controlled. Then his ear would go back, and his large brown eye, with its purple-black pupil, would look round at my bridle hand, and then into my eye, saying as well as words could have said it, " This is mere sport, my friend and master. You do not know me. I have stuff in me that you do not dream. Say the word, and I can double this, treble it. Say the word! let me show you how I can spurn the earth." Then, with the lightest love-pressure on the snaffle, I would say, "Not yet! not yet ! Patience, my noble friend ! Your time will come." At the left rode Brent, our leader. He knew the region ; he made the plan ; he had the hope ; his was the ruling passion, — stronger than brotherhood, than revenge. Love made him leader of that galloping three. His iron-gray went grandly, with white mane flapping the air like a signal- flag of reprieve. Eager hope and kindling purpose made the rider's face more beautiful than ever. He seemed to behold Sidney's motto written on the 306 AMERICAN LITERATURE. golden haze before him, " Viam aut inveniam aut faciam." I felt my heart grow great when I looked at his calm fea- tures and caught his assuring smile, — a gay smile but for the dark, fateful resolve beneath it. And when he launched some stirring word of cheer, and shook another ten of sec- onds out of the gray's mile, even Armstrong's countenance grew less deathly, as he turned to our leader in silent response. Brent looked a fit chieftain for such a wild charge over the desert waste, with his buckskin hunting-shirt and leggins with flaring fringes, his otter cap and eagle's plume, his bronzed face, with its close, brown beard, his elate head, and his seat like a centaur. So we galloped three abreast, neck and neck, hoof with hoof, steadily quickening our pace over the sere width of the desert. We must make the most of the levels. Rougher work, cruel obstacles were before. All the wild, triumphant music I had ever heard came and sang in my ears to the flinging cadence of the resonant feet, tramping on hollow arches of volcanic rock, over great, vacant chasms underneath. Sweet and soft around us melted the hazy air of October, and its warm, flickering currents shook like a veil of gauzy gold between us and the blue bloom of the mountains far away, but nearing now and lifting step by step. On we galloped, the avenger, the friend, and the lover, on our errand, to save and to slay. HENRY TIMEOD. 307 [b. Charleston, South Carolina, December 8, 1829. d. October 6, 1867.] THE UNKNOWN DEAD. The rain is plashing on my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still ; And so it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the churchyard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead. Beyond my streaming window-pane I cannot see the neighboring vane. Yet from its old familiar tower The bell comes, muf&ed, through the shower. What strange and unsuspected link Of feeling touch'd has made me think — While with a vacant soul and eye I watch that gray and stony sky — Of nameless graves on battle-plains. Washed by a single winter's rains. Where, some beneath Virginian hills, And some by green Atlantic rills, Some by the waters of the West, A myriad unknown heroes rest ? Ah ! not the chiefs who, dying, see Their flags in front of victory. Or, at their life-blood's noblest cost Paid for a battle nobly lost. Claim from their monumental beds The bitterest tears a nation sheds. Beneath yon lonely mound — the spot By all save some fond few forgot — 308 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Lie the true martyrs of the fight, Which strikes for freedom and for right. Of them, their patriot zeal and pride. The lofty faith that with them died. No grateful page shall further tell Than that so many bravely fell ; And we can only dimly guess "What worlds of all this world's distress, what utter woe, despair, and dearth. Their fate has brought to many a hearth. Just such a sky as this should weep Above them, always, where they sleep ; Yet, haply, at this very hour. Their graves are like a lover's bower ; And Nature's self, with eyes unwet, Oblivious of the crimson debt To which she owes her April grace. Laughs gayly o'er their burial-place. JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 309 3o|jti Esten Cooftc, [b. Winchester, Virginia, November 3, 1830. d. September 27, 1886.] AN ADVENTURE. The soldier looked admiringly at the trees just putting forth, their tender leaves, the grass just beginning to peep up and lie a verdant background for a thousand flowers, the little streams dancing along joyously "^^^ ^ in the gaj» sunlight. He listened, with pleasure, g^^j^jig, to the small birds which chirruped gayly, and plumed their wings in the fresh bracing wind of March, and went rising and falling on the air-billows, predicting summer and warmth. All pleased him. On the day before there had been quite a heavy fall of rain, and all the streams were swollen, and overflowed their banks. The Captain had more than one of these to cross in his path, but seemed to attach very little importance to them. He allowed the water to splash his boots with great in- difference, and rode on carelessly, humming a merry song all about Marshal Soubise and the great Frederic. The soldier's voice vas excellent, and he gave the "Tra la ! tra la ! " with great force and spirit — completely to his own satisfaction, indeed. He came thus, singing merrily, and looking around him, with the roving and curious eye of the partisan, to one of those hollows in the hills, such as are found frequently in all portions of Virginia. The road, which had for a mile or two traversed a species of wooded upland, now descended abruptly into the gorge, and mounted the- thickly firred declivity beyond. Through the gorge ran a deep stream, which, swollen by the rain, had overflowed its banks, and now rushed on under swaying pine boughs, with a merry brawl, which sounded far from unpleasantly. 310 AMERICAN LITERATURE. The sunshine gilded the rushing stream, the bold hill beyond, the thick firs, and rude masses of rock: and so picturesque was the scene, that Captain Ralph paused a moment, and looked at it admiringly. His fit of admiration soon subsided, however, and, touch- ing his horse lightly, he passed down the steep road, having resumed his song with new spirit. Selim hesitated a mo- ment, as he was about to place his delicate hoof in the water. " Tra la ! tra la ! " came from the soldier's lungs lustily ; and apparently satisfied that this signified "Go on ! " the beautiful animal plunged into the water. In an instant his back was covered, and Captain Ralph Waters experienced a disagreeable sensation about the lower part of his person. "Morbleu ! We are in for it ! " he cried, drawing up his knees, despairingly. Selim snorted, and began to swim. " Right ! " cried the soldier. " Go on, comrade ! What is a trifling wetting ? " And in defiance of the obstacle, the Captain began again, more lustily than before, to troll his ditty. Selim swam vigorously, dashed the water from his glowing chest, and, by the time his master had arrived at the chorus of his song, reached the opposite bank. He emerged from the water like a statue of glittering ebony, and the soldier, with a careless shake of his clothes, was about to proceed onward, when suddenly his attention was attracted to the opposite declivity, which, as we have said, was singularly steep and rugged. Down this road there now came, at full speed, a chariot drawn by four spirited horses, who had plainly run away, for the coachman in vain endeavored to cheek them, by vigorously tightening the reins, and uttering violent cries. The animals, with their resetted heads fixed obstinately sidewise, took no notice of these signs, and swept onward at a gallop down the declivity toward the stream, dragging the huge chariot, like a mere nutshell, rudely over the stones. JOBN ESTEN COOKE. 311 At every bound the framework cracked ; at every stone the unwieldy vehicle rumbled and groaned. "Parbleu ! here will be a smash !" cried the Captain, as the animals rushed towards him. " In an instant they will be buried in that stream ! " At the same moment, the head of a gentleman emerged from the door, and over his shoulders were seen the affrighted faces of two young girls. "Women, morbleu!" cried the soldier. "To the rescue!" And as the furious animals rushed headlong towards the stream, he caught, with a powerful hand, the bridle of the leader next to him, and exerting all his strength, made him swerve. Selim reared and fell upon his haunches, as the hot mouth of the animal struck his neck, and the Captain, clinging like a vice to the rein he had grasped, was drawn half from his saddle. The other leader, checked thus suddenly, reared, and his hoof struck the Captain's arm heavily. In another instant he would have been hurled, in spite of his great strength and activity, beneath the feet of the animals, when the gentleman whose head he had seen, and the coachman, both came to his assistance, and the coach- horses, still struggling, panting, and furious, were subdued. The Captain rose erect in his saddle again, and seeing the terrified faces of the ladies at the window of the chariot, took off his hat with his left hand, and made an elegant bow. "Excuse my rudeness, Mesdemoiselles," he said; "that devil of an animal has nearly broken my right arm, par- bleu ! " And the soldier made a wry face, as he tried to move it. " I owe you a great many thanks, sir," said the gentleman, who had now abandoned the horses to the coachman. " We should have run great risk here — indeed, I may say that you saved our lives." " Not at all, not at all — no thanks," said the Captain ; 312 AMERICAN LITERATURE. " but faith, you would have got a wetting, sir ; and I very much fear those charming young ladies would have had their silks and velvets utterly demolished. Upon reflection, I am convinced that so far they owe me thanks.'' " Pray let us know, then, whom to return them to," said the gentleman, with a courteous smile. "To Captain Ralph Waters — sometimes called the Chev- alier Waters, and the Chevalier La Eivi^re, by the rascally French, who translate everything, parbleu ! " said the sol- dier. " Then, Captain, myself and my daughters are deeply in your debt. My name is Lee ; and I insist upon your going with us to my house at Eiverhead, to have your bruise dressed." " My bruise ? Oh, yes ! I had forgotten it. But, ex- cellent sir, I do not attach importance to these trifles. A bruise more or less ? Basta ! 'tis nothing. Still, I will gladly go with you, for I am dying of ennui." " Thanks, sir. Now let us see to the means of returning." The coachman soon reassured Mr. Lee upon this point. The horses were now quiet, he said, and would go along easily. They could not cross Duck Creek, as it was too deep ; but the horses could be turned, and they could take the cross-road to Eiverhead. So the horses were turned, and Mr. Lee entering the carriage, the huge vehicle rolled up the hill which it had descended so rapidly, and took the direction of Eiverhead, Captain Ealph Waters following composedly by the window, and, when not exchanging com- pliments with the ladies, continuing to hum in a low voice, his "Trala! trala!" JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 313 THE ROSE OF GLENGARY. " Shall I sing you one of our old songs ? " The soft, pure voice sounded in his ears like some fine melody of olden poets ; her frank, kind eyes, as she looked at him, soothed and quieted him. Last of the Again she was the little laughing star of his Foresters, childhood, as when they wandered about over the fields — little children — that period so recent, yet which seemed so far away, because the opening heart lives long in a brief space of time. Again she was to him Little Eedbud, he to her was the boy playmate, Verty. She had done all by a word, — a look, a kind, frank smile, a single glance of confiding eyes. He loved her more than ever — yes, a thousand times more strongly, and was calm. He followed her to the harpsichord, and watched her in every movement with quiet happiness ; he seemed to be under the influence of a charm. " I think I will try and sing the ' Eose of Glengary,' " she said, smiling. "You know, Verty, it is one of the old songs you loved so much ; and it will make us think of old times — in childhood, you know. Though that is not such old, old time — at least, for me," . added Eedbud, with a smile more soft and confiding than before. " Shall I sing it ? Well, give me the book — the brown- backed one." The old volume — such as we find to-day in ancient coun- try houses, was opened, and Kedbud commenced singing. The girl sang the sweet ditty with much expression ; and her kind, touching voice filled the old homestead with a tender melody, such as the autumn time would utter, could its spirit become vocal. The clear, tender carol made the place fairyland for Verty long years afterwards ; and always he seemed to hear her singing when he visited the room. Eedbud sang, afterwards, more than one of those old ditties, — " Jock o' Hazeldean," and " Mowers of the For- 314 AMERICAN LITERATURE. est," and many others, — ditties wliicli, for us to-day, seem like so many utterances of the fine old days in the far past. For, who does not hear them floating above those sweet fields of the olden time, — those bright Hesperian gardens, where, for us at least, the fruits are all golden, and the airs all happy ? Beautiful, sad ditties of the brilliant past ! not he who writes would have you lost from memory, for all the modern world of music. Kind madrigals ! which have an aroma of the former day in all your cadences and dear old-fashioned trills — from whose dim ghosts now, in the faded volumes stored away in garrets and on upper shelves, we gather what you were in the old immemorial years ! Soft melodies of another age, that sound still in the present with such moving sweetness, one heart at least knows what a golden treasure you clasp, and listens thankfully when you deign to issue out from silence ; for he finds in you alone — in your gracious cadences, your gay or stately voices — what he seeks ; the life, and joy, and splendor of the antique day sacred to love and memory ! And Verty felt the nameless charm of the good old songs, warbled by the young girl's sympathetic voice; and more than once his wild-wood nature stirred within him, and his eyes grew moist. And when she ceased, and the soft carol went away to the realm of silence, and was heard no more, the young man was a child again, and Eedbud's hand was in his own, and all his heart was still. HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 315 ISizltn l^unt Sacfeson. [b. Amherst, Massachusetts, October 18, 1831. d. August 12, 1885.] SPINNING. Like a blind spinner in the sun I tread my days ; I know that all the threads will run Appointed ways ; I know each day will bring its task, And, being blind, no more I ask. I do not know the use or name Of that I spin ; I only know that some one came. And laid within My hand the thread, and said, " Since you Are blind, but one thing you can do." Sometimes the threads so rough and fast And tangled fly, I know wild storms are sweeping past, And fear that I Shall fall ; but dare not try to find A safer place, since I am blind. I know not why, but I am sure That tint and place. In some great fabric to endure Past time and race My threads will have ; so from the first. Though blind, I never felt accurst. 316 AMERICAN LITERATURE. I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung From, one short word Said over me when I was young, — So young, I heard It, knowing not that God's name signed My brow, and sealed me His, though blind. But whether this be seal or sign Within, without, It matters not. The bond divine I never doubt. I know He set me here, and still. And glad, and blind, I wait His will ; But listen, listen, day by day. To hear their tread Who bear the finished web away. And cut the thread. And bring God's message in the sun, " Thou poor blind spinner, work is done." TWO TRUTHS. " Darling," he said, " I never meant To hurt you " ; and his eyes were wet. " I would not hurt you for the world : Am I to blame if I forget ? " " Forgive my selfish tears ! " she cried, " Forgive ! I knew that it was not Because you meant to hurt me, sweet, — I knew it was that you forgot ! " But all the same, deep in her heart Eankled this thought, and rankles yet, - " When love is at its best, one loves So much that he cannot forget." HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 317 POPPIES ON THE WHEAT. Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat, A tropic tide of air, with ebb and flow Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro To mark the shore. The farmer does not know That they are there. He walks with heavy feet, Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain, Bui I, — I smile to think that days remain Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain, I shall be glad remembering how the fleet. Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat. CORONATION. At the king's gate the subtle noon Wove filmy yellow nets of sun ; Into the drowsy snare too soon The guards fell one by one. Through the king's gate, unquestioned then, A beggar went, and laughed, " This brings Me chance, at last, to see if men Fare better, being kings." The king sat bowed beneath his crown, Propping his face with listless hand ; Watching the hour-glass sifting down Too slow its shining sand. 318 AMERICAN LITERATURE. " Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me ? " The beggar turned, and, pitying, Eeplied, like one in dream, " Of thee, Nothing. I want the king." Up rose the king, and from his head Shook off the crown and threw it by. " man, thou must have known," he said, " A greater king than I." Through all the gates, unquestioned then. Went king and beggar hand in hand. Whispered the king, " Shall I know when Before his throne I stand? " The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste Were wiping from the king's hot brow The crimson lines the crown had traced. " This is his presence now." At the king's gate, the crafty noon Unwove its yellow nets of sun ; Out of their sleep in terror soon The guards waked one by one. " Ho here ! Ho there ! Has no man seen The king ? " The cry ran to and fro ; Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween. The laugh that free men know. On the king's gate the moss grew gray ; The king came not. They called him dead ; And made his eldest son one day Slave in his father's stead. GEORGE ARNOLD. 319 ©eorge ^rnollr. [b. New York, New York, June 24, 1834. d. Novembev 3, 1865.] THE MATRON YEAR. The leaves that made our forest pathways shady Begin to rustle down upon the breeze ; The year is fading, like a stately lady Who lays aside her youthful vanities ; Yet, while the memory of her beauty lingers, She cannot wear the livery of the old, So Autumn comes, to paint with frosty fingers. Some leaves with hues of crimson and of gold. The Matron's voice fill'd all the hills and valleys With full-toned music, when the leaves were young ; While now, in forest dells and garden-alleys, A chirping, reedy song at eve is sung ; Yet sometimes, too, when sunlight gilds the morning, A carol bursts from some half -naked tree, As if, her slow but sure decadence scorning. She woke again the olden melody. With odorous May-buds sweet as youthful pleasures, She made her beauty bright and debonair : But now, the sad earth yields no floral treasures, And twines no roses for the Matron's hair ; Still can she not all lovely things surrender ; Eight regal is her drapery even now ; — Gold, purple, green, inwrought with every splendor, And clustering grapes in garlands on her brow. 320 AMERICAN LITERATURE. In June, she brought us tufts of fragrant clover Eife with the ■wild bee's cheery monotone, And, when the earliest bloom was past and over, Offer'd us sweeter scents from fields new-mown ; Now, upland orchards yield, with pattering laughter, Their red-cheek'd bounty to the groaning wain, And heavy-laden racks go creeping after. Piled high with sheaves of golden-bearded grain. Erelong, when all to love and life are clinging. And festal holly shines on every wall. Her knell shall be the New- Year bells, outringing, The drifted snow, her stainless burial-pall ; She fades and fails, but proudly and sedately. This Matron Tear, who has such largess given, Her brow still tranquil, and her presence stately, As one who, losing earth, holds fast to heaven ! HERMAN MELVILLE. 321 f^erman JlelbtUe. [b. New York, New York, August 1, 1819.] A- SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE. I HAD scarcely been aboard of the ship twenty-four hours, when a circiunstance occurred, which, although noways pic- turesque, is so significant of the state of affairs, that I cannot forbear relating it. In the first place, however, it must be known, that among the crew was a man so excessively ugly, that he went by the ironical appellation of "Beauty." He was the ship's carpenter; and for that reason was sometimes known by his nautical cognomen of " Chips." There was no absolute deformity about the man ; he was symmetrically ugly. But ill favored as he was in person. Beauty was none the less ugly in temper ; but no one could blame him ; his counte- nance had soured his heart. ISTow Jermin and Beauty were always at sword's points. The truth was, the latter was the only man in the ship whom the mate had never decid- edly got the better of ; and hence the grudge he bore him. As for Beauty, he prided himself upon talking up to the mate, as we shall soon see. Toward evening there was something to be done on deck and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. " Where's that skulk. Chips ? " shouted Jermin down the forecastle scuttle. " Taking his ease, d'ye see, down here on a chest, if you want to know," replied that worthy himself, quietly with- drawing his pipe from his mouth. This insolence flung the fiery little mate into a mighty rage ; but Beauty said noth- ing, puffing away with all the tranquillity imaginable. Here, it must be remembered that, never mind what may be the 322 AMERICAN LITERATURE. provocation, no prudent officer ever dreams of entering a ship's forecastle on a hostile visit. If he wants to see any- body who happens to be there, and refuses to come up, why he must wait patiently until the sailor is willing. The rea- son is this. The place is very dark ; and nothing is easier than to knock one descending on the head, before he knows where he is, and a very long while before he ever finds out who did it. Kobody knew this better than Jermin, and so he con- tented himself with looking down the scuttle and storming. At last Beauty made some cool observation which set him half wild. " Tumble on deck," he then bellowed — " come, up with you, or I'll jump down and make you." The carpenter begged him to go about it at once. No sooner said than done : prudence forgotten, Jermin was there ; and by a sort of instinct, had his man by the throat before he could well see him. One of the men now made a rush at him, but the rest dragged him off, protesting that they should have fair play. " Now, come on deck," shouted the mate, struggling like a good fellow to hold the carpenter fast. "Take me there," was the dogged answer, and Beauty wriggled about in the nervous grasp of the other like a couple of yards of boarconstrictor. His assailant now undertook to make him up into a com- pact bundle, the more easily to transport him. While thus occupied. Beauty got his arms loose, and threw him over backward. But Jermin quickly recovered himself, when for a time they had it every way, dragging each other about, bumping their heads against the projecting beams, and re- turning each other's blows the first favorable opportunity that offered. Unfortunately, Jermin at last slipped and fell; his foe seating himself on his chest and keeping him down. Now this was one of those situations in which the voice of coun- sel, or reproof, comes with peculiar unction. Nor did Beauty HERMAN MELVILLE. 323 let the opportunity slip. But the mate said nothing va. reply, only foaming at the mouth and struggling to rise. Just then a thin tremor of a voice was heard from above. It was the captain, who, happening to ascend to the quarter- deck at the commencment of the scufle, would gladly have returned to the cabin, but was prevented by the fear of ridi- cule. As the din increased, and it became evident that his officer was in serious trouble, he thought it would never do to stand leaning over the bulwarks, so he made his appear- ance on the forecastle, resolved, as his best policy, to treat the matter lightly. " Why, why," he began, speaking pettishly, and very fast, " what's all this about ? Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin — carpen- ter, carpenter ; what are you doing down there ? Come on deck ; come on deck." Whereupon Doctor Long Ghost cries out in a squeak, " Ah ! Miss Guy, is that you ? Now, my dear, go right home, or you'll get hurt." " Pooh, pooh ! you, sir, whoever you are, I was not speak- ing to you; none of your nonsense. Mr. Jermin, I was talking to you : have the kindness to come on deck, sir ; I want to see you." " And how, in the devil's name, am I to get there ? " cried the mate furiously. "Jump down here. Captain Guy, and show yourself a man. Let me up, you Chips ! unhand me, I say ! Oh ! I'll pay you for this, some day ! Come on, Captain Guy ! " At this appeal, the poor man was seized with a perfect spasm of fidgets. " Pooh, pooh, carpenter ; have done with your nonsense ! Let him up, sir ; let him up ! Do you hear ? Let Mr. Jermin come on deck ! " " Go along with you. Paper Jack," replied Beauty ; " this quarrel's between the mate and me ; so go aft, where you belong ! " As the captain once more dipped his head down the scut- tle to make answer, from an unseen hand he received, full in the face, the contents of a tin can of soaked biscuit and 324 AMEBIC AN LITERATURE. tea-leaves. The doctor was not far off just then. Without waiting for anything more, the discomfited gentleman, with both hands to his streaming face, retreated to the quarter- deck. A few moments more, and Jermin, forced to a compro- mise, followed after, in his torn frock and scarred face, looking for all the world as if he had just disentangled him- self from some intricate piece of machinery. For about half an hour both remained in the cabin, where the mate's rough tones were heard high above the low, smooth voice of the captain. Of all his conflicts with the men, this was the first in which Jermin had been worsted ; and he was proportion- ably enraged. Upon going below — as the steward after- ward told us — he bluntly informed Guy, that, for the future, he might look out for his ship himself ; for his part, he was done with her, if that was the way he allowed his officers to be treated. After many high words, the captain finally assured him that the first fitting opportunity the carpenter should be cordially fiogged ; though, as matters stood, the experiment would be a hazardous one. Upon this Jermin reluctantly consented to drop the niatter for the present ; and he soon drowned all thoughts of it in a can of flip, which Guy had previously instructed the stew- ard to prepare, as a sop to allay his wrath. SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK. Shoe the steed with silver That bore him to the fray, When he heard the guns at dawning — Miles away ; When he heard them calling, calling — Mount ! nor stay ; HERMAN MELVILLE. 325 Quick, or all is lost; They've surprised and storm'd the post, They push your routed host ; — Gallop ! retrieve the day ! House the horse in ermine — For the foam-flake blew White through the red October ; He thunder'd into view ; They cheer'd him in the looming, Horseman and horse they knew. The turn of the tide began. The rally of bugles ran. He swung his hat in the van ; The electric hoof-spark flew. Wreathe the steed and lead him — For the charge he led Touch'd and turn'd the cypress Into amaranths for the head Of Philip, king of riders, Who raised them from the dead. The camp (at dawning lost) By eve recover'd — forced — Eang with laughter of the host At belated Early fled. Shroud the horse in sable — For the mounds they heap ! There is firing in the Valley, And yet no strife they keep ; It is the parting volley, It is the pathos deep. There is glory for the brave Who lead and nobly save, But no knowledge in the grave Where the nameless followers sleep. 326 AMERICAN LITERATURE. SHILOH. [A Requiem.] Skimming lightly, -wheeling still, The swallows fly low O'er the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh — Over the field where April rain Solaced the parch'd ones stretch'd in pain, Through the pauses of night — That foUow'd the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh, — The church so lone, the log-built one, That echo'd to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying f oemen mingled there — Foemen at morn, but friends at eve — Pame or country least their care : (What like a bullet can undeceive !) But now they lie low. While over them the swallows skim, And all is hush'd at Shiloh. WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. 327 SEilUam TOctmore Storg, [b. Salem, Massaohtisetts, February 12, 1819.] THE SAD COUNTRY. There is a sad, sad country, Where often I go to see A little child, that, for all my love, Will never come back to me. There smiles he serenely on me. With a look that makes me cry ; And he prattling runs beside me, Till I wish that I could die. That country is dim and dreary. Yet I cannot keep away. Though the shadows there are heavy and dark, And the sunlight sadder than they. And there, in a ruined garden, Which once was gay with flowers, I sit by a broken fountain. And weep and pray for hours. THE ROSE. When Nature had shaped her rustic beauties, — The bright-eyed daisy, the violet sweet, The blushing poppy that nods and trembles In its scarlet hood among the wheat, — 328 AMERICAN LITERATURE. She paused and pondered ; — and then she fashioned The scentless camelia, proud and cold, The spicy carnation freaked with passion, The lily pale, for an angel to hold. All Tvere fair ; yet something was wanting, Of freer perfection, of larger repose ; And again she paused, — then, in one glad moment. She breathed her whole soul into the rose. With you, dear Violet, Daisy, and Poppy, Pleasant it was in the fields to play. In careless and heartless joy of childhood, When an hour was as long as manhood's day. And with you, passionate, bright Carnation, A boy's brief love for a time I knew ; And you I admired, proud Lady Camelia ; And, Lily, I sang in the church with you. But my Eose, my frank, free-hearted, My perfect above all conscious arts. What were they beside thee, Rose, my darling ! To you I have given my heart of hearts. THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. 329 Eljomas Siltlliam Ip arsons, [b. Boston, Massacbusetts, August 18, 1819.] LOUISA'S GRAVE. Deep in the city's noisy heart, A sacred spot there lies ; Amid the tumult, yet apart, And shut from worldly eyes. There, just beyond the chapel shade, Hid in a clovered mound. Enough of innocence is laid To sanctify the ground. Born as the violets are, in May, With song of birds she came. And when she sighed her soul away. The season was the same. It seemed in heaven benignly meant To give this virgin birth When all things beautiful are sent To bless the budding earth. But, if her birth befitted then The spring-time and the bloom, Why, when that gladness came again, Why went she to the tomb ? Oh, let not impious grief accuse Kind Nature of a wrong ! 330 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Her form, in flowers and fragrant dews, Shall be exhaled ere long. Her beauty was akin to them ; Their elements combined To shape the young, consuramate stem, "Whose blossom was her mind. And now the blossom is with God ; Soon shall the sun and showers Wake from the slumber of the sod All that was ever ours. No weary winter's frozen sleep. Under the torpid snows. Her undecaying frame can keep In the clay's cold repose ; For all her mortal |)art shall melt. In other forms to rise, Before her spirit shall have dwelt One summer in the skies. WALT WHITMAN. 331 SEalt SEijitman. ^ [b. West Hills, Long Island, New York, May 31, 1819.] GREATNESS IN POETRY. The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity — nothing can make np for excess, or p .j „. * for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the "Leaves of heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths Grass," and give all subjects their articulations, are powers ^^^^' neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside, is the flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved it, you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations and times. You shall not con- template the flight of the gray gull over the bay, or the mettlesome action of the blood horse, or the tall leaning of sun-flowers on their stalk, or the appearance of the sun journeying through heaven, or the appearance of the moon afterward, with any more satisfaction than you contemplate him. The great poet has less a marked style and is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution, and is the free channel of himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance, or effect, or originality, to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell, I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purposes as health or heat or snow has, and be as regardless of observa- 332 AMERICAN LITERATURE. tion. Wliat I experience or portray shall go from my com- position without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me. The old red blood and stainless gentility of great poets will be proved by their unconstraint. A heroic person walks at his ease through and out of that custom or prece- dent or authority that suits him not. Of the traits of the brotherhood of first-class writers, savans, musicians, invent- ors and artists, nothing is finer than silent defiance advanc- ing from new free forms. In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, mechanism, science, behavior, the craft of art, an appropriate native grand opera, ship-craft, or any craft, he is greatest for ever and ever who contributes the greatest original practical example. The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself, and makes one. The messages of great poems to each man and woman are. Come to us on equal terms, only then can you under- stand us. We are no better than you, what we inclose you inclose, what we enjoy you may enjoy. Did you suppose there could be only one Supreme ? We affirm there can be unnumbered Supremes, and that one does not countervail another any more than one eye-sight countervails another — and that men can be good or grand only of the conscious- ness of their supremacy within them. What do you think is the grandeur of storms and dismemberments, and the deadliest battles and wrecks, and the wildest fury of the elements, and the power of the sea, and the motion of nature, and the throes of human desires, and dignity and hate and love? It is that something in the soul which says, Eage on, whirl on, I tread master here and every- where — master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of all terror and all pain. WALT WHITMAN. 333 O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rock, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting. While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring ; But heart ! heart ! heart ! the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; Else up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores arcrowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; Here Captain ! dear father ! This arm beneath your head ! It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, shores ! and ring, bells ! But I, with mouriiful tread. Walk the deck my Captain lies. Fallen cold and dead. 334 AMERICAN LITERATURE. THE SINGER IN THE PRISON. 1. sight of pity, shame and dole ! fearful thought — a convict soul. Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison, Eose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive sweet and strong the like whereof was never heard. Reaching the far-off sentry and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing, Making the hearer's pulses stop for ecstasy and awe. The sun was low in the west one winter day. When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, (There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters, Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round. Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes), Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by either hand, Whom seating on the stools beside her on the platform. She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical prelude. In voice surpassing all, sang forth a quaint old hymn. A soul confined by bars and bands, Cries, help ! help ! and wrings her hands, Blinded her eyes, bleeding her breast, Nor pardon finds, nor balm of rest. WALT whitman: 336 Ceaseless she paces too and fro, heart-sick days ! nights of woe ! Nor hand of friend, nor loving face, Nor favor comes, nor word of grace. " It was not I that sinn'd the sin. The ruthless body dragg'd me in ; Though long 1 strove courageously. The body was too much for me." Dear prison'd soul bear up a space, For soon or late the certain grace ; To set thee free and bear thee home. The heavenly pardoner death shall come. Convict no more, nor shame, nor dole ! Depart — a God-enfranchised soul ! 3. The singer ceas'd. One glance swept from her clear calm eyes o'er all those upturned faces. Strange sea of prison faces, a thousand varied, crafty, brutal, seam'd and beauteous faces, Then rising, passing back along the narrow aisle between them, While her gown touch'd them rustling in the silence, She vanish'd with her children in the dusk. While upon all, convicts and armed keepers ere they stirr'd (Convict forgetting prison, keeper his loaded pistol), A hush and pause fell down a wondrous minute. With deep half-stifled sobs and sounds of bad men bow'd and moved to weeping. And youth's convulsive breathings, memories of home, 336 AMERICAN LITERATURE. The mother's voice in lullaby, the sister's care, the happy childhood, "The long-pent spirit rous'd to reminiscence ; A wondrous minute then — but after in the solitary night, to many, many there, Years after, even in the hour of death, the sad refrain, the tune, the voice, the words, Resumed, the large calm lady walks the narrow aisle. The wailing melody again, the singer in the prison sings, O sight of pity, shame and dole ! fearful thought — a convict soul. FOR YOU, O DEMOCRACY! Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine, magnetic lands, With the love of comrades. With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies ; I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks ; By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. JULIA WARD HOWE. 387 3uUa TOariJ ?^o&je. [b. New York, New York, May 27, 1819.] BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : , He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored ; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword ; His truth is marching on. Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps ; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ; His day is marching on. Glory! glory! hallelujah! I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel : As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal: Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel! Since God is marching on. Glory! glory! hallelujah! He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 338 AMERICAN LITERATURE. •He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat: Oh, be swift, my soul ! to answer Him ; be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on. Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free ! While God is marching on. Glory! glory! hallelujah! JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 339 Sames laussell ILoiwell [b. Cambridge, KassacbueeUs, February 22, 1819.] DRYDEN. Was he, then, a great poet ? Hardly, in the narrowest definition. But he was a strong thinker, who sometimes carried common sense to a height where it catches the light of a diviner air, and warmed reason till "'^ "^ it had well-nigh the illuminating property of intu- ition. Certainly he is not, like Spenser, the poet's poet; but other men have also their rights. Even the Philistine is a man and a brother, and is entirely right as far as he sees. To demand more of him is to be unreasonable. And he sees, among other things, that a man who undertakes to write should first have a meaning perfectly defined to him- self, and then should be able to set it forth clearly in the best words. This is precisely Dryden's praise ; and, amid the rickety sentiment looming big through misty phrase which marks so much of modern literature, to read him is as bracing as a northwest wind. He blows the mind clear. In ripeness of mind and bluff heartiness of expression, he takes rank with the best. His phrase is always a short cut to his sense; for his estate was too spacious for him to need that trick of winding the path of his thought about, and planting it out with clumps of epithet, by which the landscape-gardeners of literature give to a paltry half-acre the air of a park. In poetry, to be next best is, in one sense, to be nothing ; and yet, to be among the first in any kind of writing, as Dryden certainly was, is to be one of a very small company. He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. And if he does not, like one or two of the greater masters of song, 340 AMERICAN LITERATURE. stir our sympathies by that indefinable aroma so magical in arousing the subtile associations of the soul, he has this in common with the few great writers, — that the winged seeds of his thought embed themselves in the memory, and germinate there. If I could be guilty of the absurdity of recommending to a young man any author on whom to form his style, I should tell him that, next to having something that will not stay unsaid, he could find no safer guide than Dryden. BOOKS AND READING. Every book we read may be made a round in the ever- lengthening ladder by which we climb to knowledge and to that temperance and serenity of mind which, as it Democracy j^g ^jjg ripest fruit of Wisdom, is also the sweetest. Addresses, -^^^ *^^® ^^'^ ^"^^ ^^ ^^ ^® ^^^"^ such books as make us think, and read them in such a way as helps them to do so ; that is, by endeavoring to judge them, and thus to make them an exercise rather than a relaxation of the mind. Desultory reading, except as a conscious pas- time, hebetates the brain, and slackens the bow-string of Will. It communicates as little intelligence as the messages that run along the telegraph-wire to the birds that perch on it. Pew men learn the highest use of books. After life- long study, many a man discovers too late that, to have had the philosopher's stone availed nothing without the philoso- pher to use it. Many a scholarly life, stretched like a talking vine to bring the wisdom of antiquity into com- munion with the present, can at last yield us no better news than the true accent of a Greek verse, or the translation of some filthy nothing scrawled on the walls of a brothel by some Pompeian idler. And it is certainly true that the material of thought reacts upon the thought itself. Shake- speare himself would have been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly-shaven vocabulary ; and Phidias, had JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 341 he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A man is known, says the proverb, by the company he keeps ; and not only so, but made by it. Milton makes his fallen angels grow small to enter the infernal council room ; but the soul, which God meant to be the spacious chamber where high thoughts and generous aspirations might commune together, shrinks and narrows itself to the measure of the meaner company that is wont to gather there, hatching conspiracies against our better selves. We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of the men of three centuries ago, and at a certain dignity of phrase that characterizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. Their speech was noble, because they lunched with Plutarch and supped with Plato. SNOW. The preludings of Winter are as beautiful as those of Spring. In a gray December day, when, as the farmers say, it is too cold to snow, his numbed fingers will let fall doubtfully a few star-shaped flakes, the snow- .^ ° ^ drops and anemones that harbinger his more as- sured reign. Now, and now only, may be seen, heaped on the horizon's eastern edge, those " blue clouds " from forth which Shakespeare says that Mars " doth pluck the masoned turrets.'' Sometimes, also, when the sun is low, you will see a single cloud trailing a flurry of snow along the southern hills in a wavering fringe of purple. And when at last the real snowstorm comes, it leaves the earth with a virginal look on it that no other of the seasons can rival, — com- pared with which, indeed, they seem soiled and vulgar. And what is there in nature so beautiful as the next morning after such confusion of the elements ? Night has 842 AMERICAN LITERATURE. no silence like this of busy day. All the batteries of noise are spiked. We see the movement of life as a deaf man sees it, a mere wraith of the clamorous existence that inflicts itself on our ears when the ground is bare. The earth is clothed in innocence as a garment. Every wound of the landscape is healed ; whatever was stiff has been sweetly rounded as the breasts of Aphrodite; what was unsightly has been covered gently with a soft splendor, as if, Cowley would have said, Nature had cleverly let fall her handkerchief to hide it. If the Virgin (Notre Dame de la Neige) vsrere to come back, here is an earth that would not bruise her foot, nor stain it. It is " The fanned snow That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er," — Soffiata e stretta dai venti Schiari, Winnowed and packed by the Sclavonian winds, — packed so hard, sometimes, on hill-slopes, that it will bear your weight. What grace is in all the curves, as if every one of them had been swept by that inspired thumb of Phidias's journeyman ! THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. The snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch-deep with pearl. From sheds new-roofed with Carrara Came Chanticleer's muflB^ed crow ; JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 343 The stiff rails were softened to swan's down, And still fluttered down the snow. I stood and watched by the window The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of snow-birds. Like brown leaves whirling by. I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn, Where a little headstone stood ; How the flakes were folding it gently. As did robins the babes in the wood. Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, " Father, who makes it snow ? " And I told her of the good All-father, Who cares for us here below. Again I looked at the snow-fall. And thought of the leaden sky That arched o'er our first great sorrow. When the mound was heaped so high. I remembered the gradual patience That fell from that cloud like snow, Flake by flake, healing and hiding The scar of our deep-plunged woe. And again to the child I whispered, " The snow that husheth all. Darling, the merciful Father Alone can make it fall." Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her. And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister. Folded close under deepening snow. 344 AMERICAN LITERATURE. SPRING COMES. [From "The Biglow Papbks."] I, country-born an' bred, know where to find Some blooms thet make tbe season suit the mind, An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes, — Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, Blood-roots, whose roUed-up leaves ef you oncurl, Each on 'em's cradle to a baby pearl, — But these are jes' Spring's pickets ; sure ez sin. The rebble frosts '11 try to drive 'em in ; For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, 'Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint ; Though I own up I like our back'ard springs Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds : Thet's Korthun natur', slow an' apt to doubt. But when it doos git stirred, there's no gin-out ! Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. 'Eore long the trees begia to show belief, — The maple crimsons to a coral-reef. Then saffern swarms swing off from all the wUlers, So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold Softer'n a baby's be at three days old : Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick ; he knows Thet arter this there's only blossom snows ; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. Then seems to come a hitch, — things lag behind. Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 345 An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams Heaped up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left. Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune An' gives one leap from April into June : Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you think. Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink ; The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud ; The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud ; Eed-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it. An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade ; In ellum-shrouds the iiashin' hangbird clings. An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings ; All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers. Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try With pins, — they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby ! But I do&'t love your cat'logue style, — do you ? — Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo ; One word with blood in't 's twice ez good ez two : 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year. Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings. Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to't in a mock despair. Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. 346 AMERICAN LITERATURE. TO THE DANDELION. Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent. His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass. Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze. Where, as the breezes pass. The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways. Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 347 Or whiten iu the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above. Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long. And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring Fresh every day to my untainted ears When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! Thou teaehest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show. Did we but pay the love we owe. And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these liviag pages of God's book. FROM "APPLEDORE." 'Tis the sight of a lifetime to behold The great shorn sun as you see it now, Across eight miles of undulant gold That widens landward, weltered and rolled. With freaks of shadow and crimson stains ; To see the solid mountain brow As it notches the disk, and gains and gains 348 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Until there comes, you scarce know when, A tremble of fire o'er the parted lips Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes ; then From the body of day the sun-soul slips And the face of earth darkens ; but now the strips Of western yapor, straight and thin, From which the horizon's swervings win A grace of contrast, take fire and burn Like splinters of touchwood, whose edges a mould Of ashes o'erfeathers ; northward turn For an instant, and let your eye grow cold On Agamenticus, and when once more You look 'tis as if the land-breeze, growing From the smouldering brands the film were blowing, And brightening them down to the very core ; Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden. The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden, Hardening into one black bar O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar. Shoots a splinter of light like diamond. Half seen, half fancied ; by and by Beyond whatever is most beyond In the uttermost waste of desert sky, Grows a star ; And over it, visible spirit of dew, — Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your breath, Or surely the miracle vanisheth, — The new moon, tranced in unspeakable blue ! No frail illusion ; this were true, Rather, to call it the canoe Hollowed out of a single pearl. That floats us from the Present's whirl Back to those beings which were ours. When wishes were winged things like powers ! Call it not light, that mystery tender, Which broods upon the brooding ocean. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 849 That flush of ecstasied surrender To indefinable emotion, That glory, mellower than a mist Of pearl dissolved with amethyst. Which rims Square Eock, like what they paint Of mitigated heavenly splendor Round the stern forehead of a Saint ! No more a vision, reddened, largened. The moon dips toward her mountain nest. And, fringing it with palest argent. Slow sheathes herself behind the margent Of that long cloud-bar in the West, Whose nether edge, erelong, you see The silvery chrism in turn anoint. And then the tiniest rosy point Touched doubtfully and timidly Into the dark blue's chilly strip, As some mute, wondering thing below. Awakened by the thrilling glow. Might, looking up, see Dian dip One lucent foot's delaying tip In Latmian fountains long ago. FROM "THE PRESENT CRISIS." Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight. Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 350 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Hast thou chosen, my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land ? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Obliv- ion's sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly ; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word ; Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great. Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate. But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din. List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within, — " They enslave their children's children who make compro- mise with sin." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 351 Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just ; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, — they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine. By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design. By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back. And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands ; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn. While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn. 352 AMERICAN LITERATURE. lElitoarK lEberctt 3^ale. [b. Boston, MasBacbuBetts, April 3, 1822.] A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM. I FiEST came to understand anything about "the man without a country" one day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. An The Man officer was sent to take charge of her, and, after a Country. ^®^ minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him who could speak Por- tuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the message came, and we all wished we could interpret when the cap- tain asked who spoke Portuguese. But none of the officers did ; and just as the captain was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and in this boat it was my luck to go. When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom see, and never want to. ISTastiness beyond account, and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness. There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way of making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had had their hand-cufEs and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, for convenience' sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the schooner's crew. The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him in every dialect and patois of a dialect, from the Zulu click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed. As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogs- head, on which he had mounted in desperation, and said, — EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 353 "For God's love, is there anybody who can make these "wretches understand something ? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet them. I knocked that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together ; and I'll be hanged if they understood that as well as they understood the English." Xolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out who, as it had been found already, had worked for the Portuguese on the coast at Fernando Po. " Tell them they are free," said Vaughan ; " and tell them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get rope enough." Nolan " put that into Spanish " ; that is, he explained it in such Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and they in turn to such of the negroes as could understand them. Then there was such a yell of delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan's feet, and a general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship of Vaughan, as the deus ex machina of the occasion. "Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, "that I will take them all to Cape Palmas." This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was prac- tically as far from the homes of most of them as New Orleans or Eio Janeiro was ; that is, they would be eternally separated from home there. And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said, "Ah, non Palmas," and began to propose infinite other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushed the men down, and said, "He says 'Not Palmas.' He says, ' Take lis home, take us to our own cotintry, take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own women.' He says he has an old father and mother who will die if they do not see him. And this one says he left his people all sick, and paddled down to Fernando to 354 AMERICAN LITERATURE. beg the white doctor to come and help them, and that these devils caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and that he has never seen anybody from home since then. And this one says," choked out Nolan, " that he has not heard a word from his home in six months, while he has been locked up in an infernal barracoon." Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while Nolan struggled through this interpretation. I, who did not under- stand anything of the passion involved in it, saw that the very elements were melting with fervent heat, and that something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes them- selves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he said : " Tell them yes, yes, yes ; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner through the Great White Desert, they shall go home ! " And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they all fell to kissing him again, and wanted to rub his nose with theirs. But he could not stand it long ; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me, " Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without a family, without a home, and without a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray G-od in his mercy to take you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick by your fam- ily, boy ; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy ; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it ; and rush back to it, when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to the ship, " never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, EDWARD EVERETT HALE. 355 though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Eemem- ber, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind oiflcers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her to-day ! " 356 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Etctarlr JKalcolm Soijnstom [b. Hancock County, Georgia, March 8, 1822.] NIPPED IN THE BUD. Me. Thomas Watts had already conceived a passion that was ardent, and pointed, and ambitious to a degree Dnkes- which Susan characterized as "perfectly redick- ■borongli erlous." Tales. -Qixt who was the young lady who had thus con- centrated upon herself all the first fresh worship of that young but manly heart ? Was it Miss Jones, or Miss Sharp? Was it Miss Holland or Miss Hutchins ? Not one of these. Mr. Thomas Watts had with one tremendous bound leaped clear over the heads of these secondary char- acters, and cast himself at the very foot of the throne. To be plain, Mr. Watts fondly, entirely, madly, loved Miss Julia Louisa Wilkins, the mistress and head of the Dukes- borough Female Institution. Probably this surprising reach might be attributed to the ambitious nature of his father, from whom he had inherited this and some other qualities. Doubtless, however, the recollection of having been kept long in frocks had engen- dered a desire to convince the world that they had sadly mistaken their man. Whatever was the motive power, such was the fact. Now, notwithstanding this state of his own feelings, he had never made a declaration in so many words to Miss Wilkins. But he did not doubt for a moment that she thoroughly understood his looks, and sighs, and devoted services. For the habit which all of us have of enveloping beloved objects in our hearts, and making them, so to speak, understand and reciprocate our feelings, had come to Mr. Watts even to a greater degree, perhaps, than if he had been RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 357 • older. He was as little inclined and as little able to doubt Miss Wilkins as to doubt himself. Facts seemed to bear him out. She had not only smiled upon him time and time again, and patted him sweetly on the back of his head, and praised his roach to the very skies ; but once, when he had carried her a great armful of good, fat pine-knots, she was so overcome as to place her hand under his chin, look him fully in the face, and declare if he wasn't a man, there wasn't one in this wide, wide world. Such was the course of his true love when its smoothness suffered that interruption which so strangely obtrudes itself among the fondest affairs of the heart. Miss Susan had threatened so often without fulfilment to give information to their mother, that he had begun to presume there was little or no danger from that quarter. Besides, Mr. Watts had now grown so old and manlike that he was getting to be without apprehension from any quarter. He reflected that within a few weeks more he would be fourteen years old, when legal rights would accrue, Determining not to choose any " gardzeen," it would follow that he must become his own. Yet he did not intend to act with unnecessary notoriety. His plans were, to consummate his union on the very day he should be fourteen ; but to do so clandestinely, and then run away, not stopping until he should get with his bride plump into Vermont. For even the bravest find it necessary sometimes to retreat. Of the practicability of this plan he had no doubt, because he knew that Miss Wilkins had five hundred dollars in hard cash — a whole stocking full. This sum seemed to him immensely adequate for their support in becoming style for an indefinitely long period of time. As the day of his majority approached, he grew more and more reserved in his intercourse with his family. This was scarcely to be avoided now, when he was already beginning to consider himself as not one of them. If his conscience ever upbraided him as he looked upon his toiling mother and his helpless brothers and sisters, and knew that he alone 358 AMERICAN LITERATURE. was to rise into luxury, wliile they were to be left in their lowly estate, he reflected that it was a selfish world at best, and that every man must take care of himself. But one day, after a season of unusual reserve, and when he had behaved to Miss Susan in a way which she considered outrageously supercilious, the latter availed herself of his going into the village, fulfilled her threat, and gave her mother full in- formation of the state of his feelings. That resolute woman was in the act of ironing a new homespun frock she had just made for Susan. She laid down her iron, sat down in a chair, and looked up at Susan. " Susan, don't be foolin' 'long o' me." " Ma, I tell you it's the truth." " Susan, do you want me to believe that Tom's a fool ? I know'd the child didn't have no great deal of sense ; but I didn't think he was a clean-gone fool." . . . " Yes, we lives and larns. But, bless me, it won't do to tarry here. Susan, have that frock ironed all right, stiff an4 starch, by the time I git back. I shan't be gone long." The lady arose, and, without putting on her bonnet, walked rapidly down the streets. " What are you looking for, Mrs. Watts ? " inquired an acquaintance whom she met on her way. " I'm a-looking for a person of the name of Mr. Watts," she answered, and rushed madly on. The acquaintance hurried home; but told other acquaintances, on the way, that the Widow Watts have lost her mind, and gone ravin' distracted. Soon afterwards, as Mr. Watts was slowly re- turning, his mind full of great thoughts, and his head some- what bowed, he suddenly became conscious that his hat was removed, and his roach rudely seized. Immediately afterwards he found himself carried along the street, his head foremost, and his legs and feet performing the smallest possible part in the act of locomotion. The villagers looked on with wonder. The conclusion was universal. Yes, the Widow Watts have lost her mind. RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 359 When she had reached her cabin with her charge, a space was cleared in the middle, by removing the stools and the children. Then Mr. Watts was ordered to remove such portions of his attire as might oppose any hindrance what- ever to the application of a leather strap to those parts of his person which his mother might select. " Oh, mother, mother ! " began Mr. Watts. " No motherin' o' me, sir. Down with 'em." And down they came ; and down came the strap, rapidly, violently. " Oh, mammy, mammy ! " " Ah, now ! that sounds a little like old times, when you used to be a boy," she exclaimed in glee, as the sounds were repeated amid the unslackened descent of the strap. Mrs. Watts seemed disposed to carry on a lively conversation during this flagellation. She joked her son pleasantly about Miss Wilkins, inquired when it was to be and who was to be invited ? Oh, no ! she forgot it was not to be a big wedding, but a private one. But how long were they going to be gone before they would make a visit ? But Mr. Watts not only could not see the joke, but was not able to join in the conversation at all, except to continue to scream louder and louder, " Oh, mammy, mammy ! " Mrs. Watts, finding him not disposed to be talkative, except in mere ejaculatory remarks, appealed to little Jack, and Mary Jane, and Polly Ann, and to all, down even to the baby. She asked them, Did they know that Buddy Tommy were a man grown, and were going to git married and have a wife, and then go away off yonder to the Vermontes ? Little Jack, and Polly Ann, and baby, and all, evidently did not precisely under- stand ; for they all cried and laughed tumultuously. How long this exercise, varied as it was by most animated conversation, might have continued if the mother had not become exhausted, there is no calculating. Things were fast approaching that condition when the son declared that his mother would kill him if she didn't stop. "That," she answered between breaths, "is — what — I 360 AMERICAN LITERATURE. — aims — to do — if — I can't git it — all — all — every — • spang — passel — outen you." Tom declared that it was all gone. " Is you — a man — or — is you — a boy ? " " Boy ! boy ! mammy ! " cried Tom. " Let me up, mam- my — and — I'll be a boy — as long — as I live." She let him up. "Susan, whar's that frock? Ah, there it is. Lookee here. Here's your clo'es, my man. Mary Jane, put away them pantaloonses." Tom was making ready to resume the frock. But Susan remonstrated. It wouldn't look right, now ; and she would go Tom's security that he wouldn't be a man any more. He was cured. From being an ardent lover, he grew to become a hearty hater of the principal of the Dukesborough Female Institution, the more implacable upon his hearing that she had laughed immoderately at his whipping. Be- fore many months she removed from the village ; and when, two years afterwards, a rumor (whether true Or not we never knew) came that she was dead, Tom was accused of being gratified by the news. Nor did he deny it. " Well, fellers," said he, " I know it weren't right ; but I couldn't keep from being glad, if it had a^-kilt me." DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. 361 ©onalli ®rant Hitcljcll [b. Norwich, Connecticut, April 12, 1822.] THE COUNTRY CHURCH. The parson is a stout man, remarkable, in your opinion, chiefly, for a yeUowish-brown wig, a strong nasal tone, and occasional violent thumps upon the little, clingy, red velvet cushion, studded with brass tacks, at Dream Life, the top of the desk. You do not altogether ad- mire his style ; and by the time he has entered upon his "Fourthly," you give your attention, in despair, to a new reading (it must be the twentieth) of the preface to Dr. Dwight's Version of the Psalms. The singing has a charm for you. There is a long, thin- faced, flax-haired man, who carries a tuning-fork in his waistcoat pocket, and who leads the choir. His position is in the very front rank of gallery benches, facing the desk ; and by the time the old clergyman has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister turns around to his little group of aids — consisting of the blacksmith, a carroty headed school-master, two women in snuff-colored silks, and a girl in a pink bonnet — to announce the tune. This being done in an authoritative manner, he lifts his long music-book, — glances again at his little company, — clears his throat by a powerful ahem, followed by a power- ful use of a bandanna pocket-handkerchief, — draws out his tuning-fork, and waits for the parson to close his reading. He now reviews once more his company, — throws a reprov- ing glance at the young woman in the pink hat, who at the moment is biting off a stout bunch of fennel, — lifts his music-book, — thumps upon the rail with his fork, — listens keenly, — gives a slight ahem, — falls ' into the cadence, — 362 AMERICAN LITERATURE. swells into a strong crescendo, — catches at the first word of the line, as if he were afraid it might get away, — turns to his company, — lifts his music-book with spirit, — gives it a powerful slap with the disengaged hand, and with a majestic toss of the head, soars away, with half the women below straggling on in his wake, into some such brave, old melody as — Litchfield ! . . . The farmers you have a high respect for — particularly for one weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown surtout, who brings his whip into church with him, who sings in a very strong voice, and who drives a span of gray colts. You think, however, that he has got rather a stout wife ; and from the way he humors her in stopping to talk with two or three other fat women, before setting off for home (though he seems a little fidgety), you naively think that he has a high regard for her opinion. Another townsman, who at- tracts your notice, is a stout old deacon, who, before enter- ing, always steps around the corner of the church, and puts his hat upon the ground, to adjust his wig in a quiet way. He then marches up the broad aisle in a stately manner, and plants his hat, and a big pair of buckskin mittens, on the little table under the desk. When he is fairly seated in his corner of the pew, with his elbow upon the top-rail, — almost the only man who can comfortably reach it, — you observe that he spreads his brawny fingers on his scalp, in an exceedingly cautious manner ; and you innocently think again, that it is very hypocritical in a deacon, to be pre- tending to lean upon his hand, when he is only keeping his wig straight. After the morning service, they have an "hour's inter- mission," as the preacher calls it ; during which, the old men gather on a sunny side of the building, and after shak- ing hands all around, and asking after the " folks " at home, they enjoy a quiet talk about the crops. One man, for in- stance, with a twist in his nose, would say, " It's raether a growin' season " ; and another would reply, " Tolerable ; but potatoes is feelin' the wet, badly." The stout deacon ap- DONALD GRANT MITCHELL. 363 proves this opinion, and confirms it, by blowing his nose very powerfully. Two or three of the more worldly minded ones will per- haps stroll over to a neighbor's barn-yard, and take a look at his young stock, and talk of prices, and whittle a little ; and very likely some two of them will make a conditional " swop " of " three likely yer'lings " for a pair of " two-year- olds." The youngsters are fond of getting out into the grave- yard, and comparing jack-knives, or talking about the school- master, or the menagerie ; or, it may be, of some prospec- tive " travel " in the fall, — either to town, or perhaps to the " seashore." Afternoon service hangs heavily ; and the tall chorister is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss of his head, as in the morning. A boy in the next box tries to provoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets of ginger- bread through the bars of the pew ; but as you are not accustomed to that way of making acquaintance, you decline all overtures. After the service is finished, the wagons that have been disposed on either side of the road, are drawn up before the door. The old Squire meantime is sure to have a little chat with the parson before he leaves ; in the course of which, the parson takes occasion to say, that his wife is a little ailing — "a slight touch," he thinks, "of the rheumatiz." One of the children, too, has been troubled with the " summer complaint " for a day or two ; but he thinks that a dose of catnip, under Providence, will effect a cure. The younger and unmarried men, with red wagons, flam- ing upon bright yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive off in the van ; and they spin frightfully near some of the fat, sour-faced women, who remark in a quiet, but not very Christian tone, that " they fear the elder's sermon hasn't done the young bucks much good." It is much to be feared, in truth, that it has not. 364 AMERICAN LITERATURE. In ten minutes the old cliureli is thoroughly deserted; the neighbor who keeps the key has locked up for another ■week, the creaking door ; and nothing of the service remains within, except — Dr. Dwight's version, — the long music books, — crumbs of gingerbread, and refuse stalks of de- spoiled fennel. THOMAS WENTWOBTH HIGGINSON. 365 ^ijotnas SEenttoortfj l^tgQtnson. [b. Cambridge, Massacbusetta, December 22, 1823.] SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND. In our metliodical New England life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign them- selves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. AprilBays. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city ; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themseles on some barren sea^coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls ; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away. It is time to chant a hymn of more liberal grati- tude. There are no days in the whole round year more delicious than those which often come to us in the latter half of April. On these days one goes forth in the morning, and finds an Italian warmth brooding over all the hills ; taking visible shape in a glistening mist of silvered azure, with which mingles the smoke from many bonfires. The sun trembles in his own soft rays, till one understands the old English tradition, that he dances on Easter-Day. Swimming in a sea of glory, the tops of the hills look nearer than their bases, and their glistening water-courses seem close to the eye, as is their liberated murmur to the ear. All across this broad intervale the teams are ploughing. The grass in the meadow seems all to have grown green since yesterday. The blackbirds jangle in the oak, the robin is perched upon the elm, the song-sparrow on the hazel, and the bluebird on the apple-tree. There rises a hawk and sails slowly, the 366 AMERICAN LITERATURE. stateliest of airy things, a floating dream of long and lan- guid summer-hours. But as yet, though there is warmth enough for a sense of luxury, there is coolness enough for exertion. Xo tropics can offer such a burst of joy ; indeed, no zone much warmer than our Xorthern States can offer a genuine spring. There can be none where there is no winter, and the monotone of the season is broken only by wearisome rains. Vegetation and birds being distributed over the year, there is no burst of verdure nor of song. But with us, as the buds are swelling, the birds are arriv- ing ; they are building their nests almost simultaneously ; and in all the Southern year there is no such rapture of beauty and of melody as here marks every morning from the last of April onward. But days even earlier than those in April have a charm, — even days that seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of March-wind lingers, chasing the squirrel from the tree and the children from the meadows. There is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, — there is .such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down and put away ; throughout the leafy arcades the branches show no remnant of last year, save a few twisted leaves of oak and beech, a few empty seed-vessels of the tardy witch- hazel, and a few gnawed nutshells dropped coquettishly by the squirrels into the crevices of the bark. All else is bare, but prophetic ; buds everywhere, the whole splendor of the coming summer conpentrated in those hard little knobs on every bough, and clinging here and there among them, a brown, papery chrysalis, from which shall yet wave the superb wings of the Luna moth. An occasional shower patters on the dry leaves, but it does not silence the robin on the outskirts of the wood; indeed, he sings louder than ever during rain, though the song-sparrow and the bluebird are silent. FRANCIS PARKMAN. 367 Jrancis Paritman, [b. Boston, MaBsacbusetts, Septemlier 16, 1823.] THE HEROES OF THE LONG SAUT. In the preceding April, before the designs of the Iroquois were known, a young officer naoned Daulac, commandant of the garrison of Montreal, asked leave of Maison- neuve, the governor, to lead a party of volunteers -^.^. against the enemy. His plan was bold to despera^ oanada, tion. It was known that Iroquois warriors in great numbers had wintered among the forests of the Ottawa. Daulac proposed to waylay them on their descent of the river, and fight them without regard to disparity of force. The settlers of Montreal had hitherto acted solely on the defensive, for their numbers had been too small for aggres- sive war. Of late their strength had been somewhat in- creased, and Maisonneuve, judging that a display of enter- prise and boldness might act as a check on the audacity of the enemy, at length gave his consent. Adam Daulac, or DoUard, Sieur des Ormeaux, was a young man of good family, who had come to the colony three years before, at the age of twenty-two. He had held some mili- tary command in France, though in what rank does not appear. It was said that he had been involved in some atiair which made him anxious to wipe out the memory of the past by a noteworthy exploit ; and he had been busy for some time among the young men of Montreal, inviting them to join him in the enterprise he meditated. Sixteen of them caught his spirit, struck hands with him, and pledged their word. They bound themselves by oath to accept no quarter; and having gained Maisonneuve's con- 368 AMEBIC AX LITERATURE. sent they made their wills, confessed, and received the sac- raments. As they knelt for the last time before the altar in the chapel of the Hotel Dieu, that sturdy little population of pious Indian-fighters gazed on them with enthusiasm, not unmixed with an envy which had in it nothing ignoble. Some of the chief men of Montreal, with the brave Charles Le Moyne at their head, begged them to wait till the spring sowing was over, that they might join them; but Daulac refused. He was jealous of the glory and the danger, and he wished to command, which he could not have done had Le Moyne been present. The spirit of the enterprise was purely mediaeval. The enthusiasm of honor, the enthusiasm of adventure, and the enthusiasm of faith, were its motive forces. Daulac was a knight of the early crusades among the forests and savages of the iSTew World. Yet the incidents of this exotic hero- ism are definite and clear as a tale of yesterday. The names, ages, and occupations of the seventeen young men may still be read on the ancient register of the parish of Montreal ; and the notarial acts of that year, preserved in the records of the city, contain minute accounts of such property as each of them possessed. The three eldest were of twenty-eight, thirty, and thirty-one years respectively. The age of the rest varied from twenty-one to twenty- seven. They were of various callings, — soldiers, armorers, locksmiths, lime-burners, or settlers without trades. The greater number had come to the colony as part of the re- inforcement brought by Maisonneuve in 1653. After a solemn farewell, they embarked in several canoes well supplied with arms and ammunition. They were very indiiferent canoe-men ; and it is said that they lost a week in vain attempts to pass the swift current of St. Anne, at the head of the island of Montreal. At length they were more successful, and entering the mouth of the Ottawa, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and slowly advanced against the current. Meanwhile, forty warriors of that remnant of the Hu- FRANCIS PARKMAN. 369 rons who, in spite of Iroquois persecutions, still lingered at Quebec, had set out on a war-party, led by the brave and wily iStienne Annahotaha, their most noted chief. They stopped by the way at Three Elvers, where they found a band of Christian Algonquins under a chief named Mitu- vemeg. Annahotaha challenged him to a trial of courage, and it was agreed that they should meet at Montreal, where they were likely to find a speedy opportunity of putting their mettle to the test. Thither, accordingly, they re- paired, the Algonquin with three followers, and the Huron with thirty-nine. It was not long before they learned the departure of Daulac and his companions. "Tor," observes the honest DoUier de Casson, " the principal fault of our Frenchmen is to talk too much." The wish seized them to share the adventure, and to that end the Huron chief asked the gov- ernor for a letter to Daulac, to serve as credentials. Maison- neuve hesitated. His faith in Huron valor was not great, and he feared the proposed alliance. Nevertheless, he at length yielded so far as to give Annahotaha a letter in which Daulac was told to accept or reject the proffered reinforcement as he should see fit. The Hurons and Algon- quins now embarked, and paddled in pursuit of the seven- teen Frenchmen. They meanwhile had passed with difficulty the swift cur- rent at Carillon, and about the first of May reached the foot of the more formidable rapid called the Long Saut, where a tumult of waters, foaming among ledges and bowlders, barred the onward way. It was needless to go further. The Iroquois were sure to pass the Saut, and could be fought here as well as elsewhere. Just below the rapid, where the forests sloped gently to the shore, among the bushes and stumps of the rough clearing made in constructing it, stood a palisade fort, the work of an Algonquin war-party in the past autumn. It was a mere enclosure of trunks of small trees planted in a circle, and was already ruinous. Such as it was, the 370 AMERICAN LITERATURE. frenchmen took possession of it. Their first care, one would think, should have been to repair and strengthen it ; but this they seem not to have done : possibly in the exalta- tion of their minds they scorned such precaution. They made their fires, and slung their kettles on the neighboring shore ; and here they vs^ere soon joined by the Hurons and Algonquins. Daulac, it seems, made no objection to their company, and they all bivouacked together. Morning and noon and night they prayed in three different tongues ; and when at sunset the long reach of forests on the farther shore basked peacefully in the level rays, the rapids joined their hoarse music to the notes of their evening hymn. In a day or two their scouts came in with tidings that two Iroquois canoes were coming down the Saut. Daulac had time to set his men in ambush jimong the bushes at a point where he thought the strangers likely to land. He judged aright. The canoes, bearing five Iroquois, approached, and were met by a volley fired with such precipitation that one or more of them escaped the shot, fled into the forest, and told their mischance to their main body, two hundred in number, on the river above. A fleet of canoes suddenly appeared, bounding down the rapids, filled with warriors eager for revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to their fort, leaving their kettles still slung over the fires. The Iroquois made a hasty and desultory attack, and were quickly repulsed. They next opened a parley, hoping, no doubt, to gain some advantage by surprise. Failing in this, they set themselves, after their custom on such occasions, to building a rude fort of their own in the neighboring forest. This gave the French a breathing-time, and they used it for strengthening their defences. Being provided with tools, they planted a row of stakes within their palisade, to form a double fence, and filled the intervening space with earth and stones to the height of a man, leaving some twenty loopholes, at each of which three marksmen were stationed. Their work was still unfinished when the Iro- FEANCIS PARKMAN 371 quois were upon them again. They had broken to pieces the birch canoes of the French and their allies, and kindling the bark, rushed up to pile it blazing against the palisade ; but so brisk and steady a fire met them that they recoiled and at last gave way. They came on again, and again were driven back, leaving many of their number on the ground, among them the principal chief of the Senecas. Some of the French dashed out, and, covered by the fire of their comrades, hacked off his head, and stuck it on the palisade, while the Iroquois howled in a frenzy of helpless rage. They tried another attack, and were beaten off a third time. This dashed their spirits, and they sent a canoe to call to their aid five hundred of their warriors who were mustered near the mouth of the Eichelieu. These were the allies whom, but for this untoward check, they were on their way to join for a combined attack on Quebec, Three Eivers, and Montreal. It was maddening to see their grand project thwarted by a few French and Indians ensconced in a paltry redoubt, scarcely better than a cattle-pen ; but they were forced to digest the afEront as best they might. Meanwhile, crouched behind trees and logs, they beset the fort, harassing its defenders day and night with a spat- tering fixe and a constant menace of attack. Thus five days passed. Hunger, thirst, and want of sleep wrought fatally on the strength of the French and their allies, who, pent up together in their narrow prison, fought and prayed by turns. Deprived as they were of water, they could not swallow the crushed Indian corn, or " hominy," which was their only food. Some of them, under cover of a brisk fire, ran down to the river and filled such small vessels as they had ; but this pittance only tantalized their thirst. They dug a hole in the fort, and were rewarded at last by a little muddy water oozing through the clay. Among the assailants were a number of Hurons, adopted by the Iroquois, and fighting on their side. These renegades now shouted to their countrymen in the fort, telling them that a fresh army was close at hand ; that they would soon 372 AMERICAN LITERATURE. be attacked by seven or eight hiindred ■warriors ; and that their only hope was in joining the Iroquois, who would receive them as friends. Annahotaha's followers, half dead with thirst and famine, listened to their seducers, took the bait, and, one, two, or three at a time, climbed the palisade, and ran over to the enemy, amid the hootings and execra- tions of those whom they deserted. Their chief stood firm ; and when he saw his nephew. La Mouche, join the other fugitives, he fired his pistol at him in a rage. The four Algonquins, who had no mercy to hope for, stood fast, with the courage of despair. On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven hundred savage throats, mingled with a clattering salute of musketry, told the Frenchmen that the expected reinforce- ment had come ; and soon, in the forest and on the clearing, a crowd of warriors mustered for the attack. Knowing from the Huron deserters the weakness of their enemy, they had no doubt of an easy victory. They advanced cautiously, as was usual with the Iroquois, before their blood was up, screeching, leaping from side to side, and firing as they came on ; but the French were at their posts, and every loophole darted its tongue of fire. Besides mus- kets, they had heavy musketoons of large calibre, which, scattering scraps of lead and iron among the throng of savages, often maimed several of them at one discharge. The Iroquois, astonished at the persistent vigor of the defence, fell back discomfited. The fire of the French, who were themselves completely under cover, had told upon them with deadly effect. Three days more wore away in a series of futile attacks, made with little concert or vigor ; and during all this time Daulac and his men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed as before, sure of a martyr's reward. The uncertain, vacillating temper common to all Indians now began to declare itself. Some of the Iroquois were for going home. Others revolted at the thought, and declared that it would be an eternal disgrace to lose so many men at FRANCIS PARKMAN. 373 the hands of so paltry an enemy, and yet fail to take revenge. It was resolved to make a general assault, and volunteers were called for to lead the attack. After the custom on such occasions, bundles of small ' sticks were thrown upon the ground, and those picked them up who dared, thus accepting the gage of battle, and enrolling them- selves in the forlorn hope. No precaution was neglected. Large and heavy shields four or five feet high were made by lashing together three split logs with the aid of cross-bars. Covering themselves with these mantelets, the chosen band advanced, followed by the motley throng of warriors. In spite of a brisk fire, they reached the palisade, and, crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their hatchets to cut their way through. The rest followed close, and swarmed like angry hornets around the little fort, hacking and tearing to get in. Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with powder, and plugged up the muzzle. Lighting the fuse inserted in it, he tried to throw it over the barrier, to burst like a grenade among the crowd of savages without ; but it struck the ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the Frenchmen and exploded, killing and wounding several of them, and nearly blinding others. In the confusion that followed, the Iroquois got posses- sion of the loopholes, and, thrusting in their guns, fired on those within. In a moment more they had torn a breach in the palisade ; but, nerved with the energy of desperation, Daulac and his followers sprang to defend it. Another breach was made, and then another. Daulac was struck dead, but the survivors kept up the fight. With a sword or a hatchet in one hand and a knife in the other, they threw themselves against the throng of enemies, striking and stabbing with the fury of madmen ; till the Iroquois, despairing of taking them alive, fired volley after volley and shot them down. All was over, and a burst of trium- phant yells proclaimed the dear-bought victory. 374 AMERICAN LITERATURE. BtoxQt Henrg 33ofter. [b. Philadelpbia, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1823.] THE QUEEN'S TOUCH. On a Good Eriday, as it once befell, The gentle lady, royal Isabel, Stepped from her palace -with a fair array Of Spanish nobles. Plumes and banners gay, And lines of burnished halberds made a lane. Through which the sovereign and her glittering train Swept like a gorgeous cloud across the face Of some bright sunset. Even was her pace. And a deep calm dwelt in her steady eyes, August with queenly power, and counsel wise To sway a realm ; yet round her playful lip The child still lingered, and a smile would slip, Like a stray sunbeam o'er a dimpled rose. When the crowd shouted, or an eager close Of loyal people broke the martial line. And stayed her progress. One could scarce incline Whether to call her queen or child ; so bright And innocent a spirit lit the might Of awful sovereignty, as on she went Bearing the diadem of Charles unbent — Ay, smiling under it, as if the weight Of empery heaven lightened to the date Of her few years. For surely heaven may bend In mercy to the merciful, and lend Its strength to her who for the weak can feel, As gracious Isabel. The traitor's steel ; The storms that broke around her princely head, WTien they who should have shielded her, instead GEORGE HENRY BOKER. 375 Of muttering plots and tempting her with guile, Turned from her side ; the anarchy the while That rent her kingdom, and made Spain's great throne Eock as if startled by the earthquake's groan — All these, and more, she dared, and could withstand, Because God led her by the trusting hand. And showed the mercy she has ever shown. You who look doubtfully, with sighs or sneers, Citing the history of her after years, Eemember this — and let the thought atone For many a weakness, many an error done Out of the lessons of her early days, When all conspired to lead her evil ways — Her faults were taught, her virtues are her own. Across the flower-strewn way she slowly walked, Wondering at many things ; anon she talked To the grave minister who moved beside His youthful mistress with a haughty stride Of strained decorum. Curiously she asked Of this and that ; and much the lord was tasked To answer all her questions, which did flow Like ripples on the shore, — ere one could go Another leaped above it. For her state Was new to her, and not a rustic's mate Among the throng more marvelled at the sight Nor drew from it a more sincere delight, Than royal Isabel. More pleased she seemed At the hoarse shouts, and at the love that beamed From the tanned faces of the common crowd, Than at the courtly whispers, or the proud Looks of fixed dignity. The beggar's rags Were dearer to her than the silken flags That coiled above her ; and his vivas drowned The swell of music, and the ringing sound 376 AMERICAN- LITERATURE. Of the saluting steel. And once she turned Full on a lord, while every feature burned With a new thought ; and, pointing unto one 111 clad, indeed, yet with a face o'errun With honest love, said, laughing at the close, " Why wear you purple, and he ragged clothes ? " Much the Don talked about society. And laws, and customs, and how all agree To make one world. Although he talked the thing Clear to himself, and shaped a pretty ring Of binding Avords, no answering look he caught Prom the Queen's eyes ; and when he gravely sought To draw a word of sympathetic cheer, Upon her cheek he marked a long, bright tear : So he passed on in silence, she in thought. At length the minster's arch above them bent And through its gloom the shining courtiers went, Making strange light within that dusky pile. And all along the borders of the aisle Old chiefs and heroes in white grandeur slept Upon the tombs. Their marble faces kept A settled quiet, as they upward gazed Upon their arms and spoils, above them raised, Along the rafters, each in solemn ward, Some with their hands upon a sculptured sword. Some clasped in prayer, and others, full of grace. Crossed on their breasts. The courtiers' noisy pace Broke the long silence, with a painful jar. Unmeet and alien. Trophies of old war — Pennons, blood-stained, torn flags, and banners, fell And rose again, o'er royal Isabel : As if the soul that fired her ancient strain Were roused, and all the chivalry of Spain Breathed in their hollow sepulchres beneath, And waved the banners with a mighty breath. GEORGE HENRY BOKER. 377 St. George's cross was shaken as with dread, The lilied silk of France shrank, as when spread O'er Pavia's bloody field, a second shame Thrilled the Dutch standards, as if Alva's name Were heard among them ; the horse-tails of the Moor Streamed to the wind, as when they fled before The furious Cid ; spears glittered, swords were stirred Within their scabbards ; one in fancy heard The trumpet's murmur, and a warlike peal Through the closed casques — " St. Jago for Castile ! " If she stepped on more proudly it was not That Isabel herself was proud. The spot Of crimson on her forehead was a gleam Of the old glory, a reflected beam Cast from the trophies, that brought back the day When her sire's sceptre swept the world. A ray Of keenest sunshine through the aisles shot down, And blazed amid the jewels of her crown, Like a saint's aureole, as the Queen drew nigh The holy altar. With a gentle sigh The organ whispered through the mcense-smoke, Trilling above her, like a lark awoke Some misty morning, till she touched the stair Of the high altar ; when, with sudden blare, In one grand storm of music burst the whole Torrent of sound o'erhead, and roll on roll Crashed through the building, from its hundred throats Of shivering metal thundering forth the notes. Eadiant with sunlight, wrapt in holy sound. And fragrant vapors, that in spirals wound Up through the pillars of the choir, the Queen Paused, as in doiibt, before a sable screen Upon the altar, and a courtier led. By a sweet look, beside her — " Sir," she said, " Why are those papers on the altar pall ? " "They hold the names, your majesty of all 378 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Condemned to death by law. The one you touch Shall surely live. — The ancient rite is such." Without a pause to weigh it, the great thought Burst from her nature, as she sprang and caught, Hither and thither, at each fatal scrawl — Gathered the whole — and, ere she let them fall, A gracious look to the rapt court she gave, And softly said, " See, senors, see, I have A little hand; but I can touch them all! " GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 879 ffieorge SlCtUtam €uxii%, [b. Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824.] PASTORAL WALKS. Charles Lamb, in a felicitous turn of words that makes everybody wish to do what he describes, speaks of taking "those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Harper's Mackery End, in Hertfordshire." Who would Magazine, not take one of those walks ? What quaintness Jilyi in the words Mackery End ! What rural melody in the word Hertfordshire ! Lamb says that he was once detected by a familiar damsel reclining upon the grass, on Primrose Hill, reading "Pamela," and he wishes that it had been any other book. But if any loiterer were detected sitting by a stream or under a tree, in this delightful season, reading Lamb's very essay from which we quote, he could not wish the situation to be different. As we write, it is the season for those pretty pastoral walks. There is one week in May — the dogwood week, when the dogwood is in blossom — which is the most beauti- ful in the year. All the trees and shrubs are then budding and bursting. The cherry-trees are beginning to lose their blossoms, and the apple-trees, at a little distance, are rounded mounds of bloom. The warm puffs of air — wafts, as the young poets call them — are aromatic with the richness of the orchards ; and the gardens of the Hesperides were not more exquisite in color and fragrance. There among the dark pines is the pink cloud of the Judas-tree ; and under the forest-trees, before they have fairly started, the shad- blossom herald of the azalea, the swamp honeysuckle. The brilliant yellow Forsythia, which comes before the lilac dares, and almost takes the winds of March, leads in the flowery train in garden-beds and along the edges of lawns. 380 AMERICAN LITERATURE. But what suddenness, and what profusion ! An eariy warm day reminds you that the time of the singing of birds has come, and that you must begin to peer after the vines and the young grapes ; and you are amazed to find that you have been caught napping, and that while you were wonder- ing how much longer fires would be nectessary, the myriad firstlings of the year were already quickening, and that there were crocuses and violets and the trailing arbutus ready for the finder. From that moment a kind of Bay of Fundy floral tide swells and rises and pours all around the busy and (Jelighted spectator. It is not a high tide of Lincolnshire only, but another deluge, of verdure and bloom, tender and beautiful ; and hill and meadow and the far undulating country are all submerged in the ethereal splendor. " Pretty pastoral walks " — in the country there are then no other. The season was in the heart of June when Lamb, in later years, returned to Mackery End ; and he was so ex- clusively a citizen, a denizen of streets, that he apparently cared very little for the landscape, and probably knew little of trees and flowers. It was the romance of the old house, and a certain higher family association, which gave his imagination a vague contact with grandeur, causing " very Gentility " to pass into his consciousness, which made the charm of the place to him. It was yesterday, and not to-day. But the pretty pastoral walks about the Easy Chair in the month of May are rich with the glory of the present moment. Indeed, from day to day, in that teeming season, the eye must be on the alert to mark each step of the swift progress. One morning the ground is all violets ; the next, the lilacs are everywhere in full flower; and the simultane- ous eflorescence of tree and shrub and creeping plant is bewildering. From the hill your eye looks down the brilliant fresh green of the springing rye in the long upland field to the trees below, the orchard trees and the dogwood, with the OEOBGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 381 bright young grass beneath, and far beyond, the gradual slope of the plain, with houses and gardens and spires and groves, to the water ; and on the other side the same varied luxuriance, receding to the misty hills. In the hazy after- noon the landscape itself becomes a mist, in which the water lines shine with intense brightness — gleams of silver in a solitary land. The bland air breathes softly as the loiterer gazes ; it is perfumed beyond the air of Araby. That glit- tering sheet of silver is not the familiar strait; it is the poet's " Broad water of the West " ; it is the sluggish stream of the Arthurian legend along which slide the slow barges — the river of Paradise. " Give me health and a day," says Emerson, in his earliest book, "and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria ; the sunset and moonrise my Pa- phos, and unimaginable realms of faerie ; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding ; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams." Let the day be a day of spring, the midmost week of May in this latitude, and the pretty pastoral walk in the suburbs will not be about Mackery End, but about the garden of Eden. 382 AMERICAN LITEBATUBE. (Cfjarles CSoUfres Helanb. [b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 15, 1824.] THELEME, I SAT one night on a palace step, Wrapped up in a mantel thin, And I gazed with, a smile on the world without, With a growl at my world within. Till I heard the merry voices ring Of a lordly companie. And straight to myself I began to sing " It is there that I ought to be." And long I gazed through a lattice raised Which smiled from the old gray wall, And my glance went in, with the evening breeze, And ran o'er the revellers all ; And I said, " If they saw me, 'twould cool their mirth, Far more than this wild breeze free, But a merrier party was ne'er on earth, And among them I fain would be." And oh ! but they all were beautiful. Fairer than fairy-dreams. And their words were sweet as the wind harp's tone When it rings o'er summer streams ; And they pledged each other with noble mien, " True heart with my life to thee ! " " Alack ! " quoth I, " but my soul is dry, And among them I fain would be ! " CHARLES GODFREY LELAND. 383 And the gentlemen were noble souls, Good fellows both sain and sound, I had not deemed that a band like this Could over the world be found ; And they spoke of brave and beautiful things, Of all that was dear to me ; And I thought, " Perhaps they would like me well, If among them I once might be ! " And loYely were the ladies too. Who sat in the light-bright hall, And one there was, oh, dream of life ! The loveliest 'mid them all ; She sat alone by an empty chair. The queen of the feast was she, And I said to myself, " By that lady fair I certainly ought to be." And loud she Spoke, " We have waited long For one who in fear and doubt Looks wistfully into our hall of song As he sits on the steps without ; I have sung to him long in silent dreams, I have led him o'er land and sea, Go welcome him as his rank beseems. And give him a place by me ! " They opened the door, yet I shrunk with shame, As I sat in my mantle thin. But they haled me out with a joyous shout. And merrily led me in — And gave me a place by my bright-haired love, As she wept with joy and glee. And I said to myself, "By the stars above, I am just where I ought to be ! 384 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Parewell to thee, life of joy and grief! Farewell to ye, care, and pain ! Farewell, tliou vulgar and selfish world ! For I never will know thee again. I live, in a land where good fellows abound, In Thelem6, by the sea; They may long for a " happier life " that will, — I am just where I ought to be ! RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 385 EirijarU ^mrg Stolitiarlr. [b. HiDgbam, Maseacbusetts, July 2, 1825.] THE COUNTRY LIFE. Not what we would, but what we must, Makes up the sum of living ; Heaven is both more and less than just In taking and in giving. Swords cleave to hands that sought the plough, And laurels miss the soldier's brow. Me, whom the city holds, whose feet Have worn its stony highways, Familiar with its loneliest street — Its ways were never my ways — My cradle was beside the sea, And there, I hope, my grave will be. Old homestead ! In that old, gray town. Thy vane is seaward blowing. Thy slip of garden stretches down To where the tide is flowing ; Below they lie, their sails all furled. The ships that go about the world. Dearer that little country house. Inland, with pines beside it; Some peach-trees, with unfruitful boughs, A well, with weeds to hide it ; No flowers, or only such as rise Self-sown, poor things, which all despise. 386 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Dear country home ! Can I forget The least of thy sweet trifles ? The window-vines that clamber yet, Whose blooms the bee still rifle? ? The roadside blackberries, growing ripe, And in the woods the Indian Pipe ? Happy the man who tills his field, Content with rustic labor ; Earth does to him her fulness yield. Hap what may to his neighbor. Well days, sound nights, can there be A life more rational and free ? Dear country life of child and man ! For both the best, the strongest. That with the earliest race began, And hast outlived the longest. Their cities perished long ago ; Who the first farmers were we know. Perhaps our Babels too will fall. If so, no lamentations ; Por Mother Earth will shelter all, And feed the unborn nations ; Yes, and the swords that menace now Will then be beaten to the plough. HYMN TO THE SEA. I know our inland landscapes, pleasant fields, Where lazy cattle browse, and chew the cud ; The smooth declivities of quiet vales : The swell of uplands and the stretch of woods. Within whose shady places Solitude RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 387 Holds her perpetual court. They touch me not, Or only touch me in my shallowest moods, And leave no recollection. They are naught. But thou, Sea, whose majesty and might Are mild and beautiful in this still bay. But terrible in the mid-ocean deeps, I never see thee but my soul goes out To thee, and is sustained and comforted ; For she discovers in herself, or thee, A stern necessity for stronger life, And strength to live it : she surrenders all She had, and was, and is possessed of more. With more to come — endurance, patience, peace. I love thee. Ocean, and delight in thee. Thy color, motion, vastness, — all the eye Takes in from shore, and on the tossing waves ; Nothing escapes me, not the least of weeds That shrivels and blackens on the barren sand. I have been walking on the yellow sands, Watching the long, white, ragged fringe of foam The waves had washed up on the curves of beach. The endless fluctuation of the waves. The circuit of the sea-gulls, low, aloft. Dipping their wings an instant in the brine, And urging their swift flight to distant woods. And round and over all the perfect sky. Clear, cloudless, luminous, in the summer noon. Thou wert before the Continents, before The hollow heavens, which like another sea Encircles them, and thee ; but whence thou wert, And when thou wast created, is not known. Antiquity was young when thou wast old. There is no limit to thy strength, no end To thy magnificence. Thou goest forth 388 AMERICAN LITERATURE. On thy long journeys to remotest lands, And comest back unwearied. Tropic isles, Thick-set with pillared palms, delay thee not, Nor Arctic icebergs hasten thy return. Summer and winter are alike to thee. The settled, sullen sorrow of the sky Empty of light ; the laughter of the sun ; The comfortable murmur of the wind From peaceful countries, and the mad uproar That storms let loose upon thee in the night Which they create and quicken with sharp, white fire. And crash of thunders ! Thou art terrible In thy tempestuous moods, when the loud winds Precipitate their strength against the waves ; They rear, and grapple, and wrestle, until at last, Bafa.ed by their own violence, they fall back, And thou art calm again, no vestige left Of the commotion, save the long, slow roll In summer days on beaches far away. INDEX OF AUTHORS. Ames, Fisher, 29. Arnold, George, 319. Bancroft, George, 209. Barlow, Joel, 31. Beecher, Henry Ward, 286. Boker, George Henry, 374. Brown, Charles Brockden, 38. Brownell, Henry Howard, 222. Bryant, William Cullen, 123. Calhoun, John Caldwell, 62. Gary, Alice, 216. Gary, Phoebe, 219. Channing, William EUery, 53. Choate, Rufus, 137. Clay, Henry, 59. Conrad, Robert Taylor, 75. Cooke, John Esten, 309. Cooper, James Fenimore, 76. Cranch, Christopher Pearse, 300. Curtis, George William, 379. Dana, Richard Henry, 117. Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., 275. Drake, Joseph Rodman, 47. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 162. Everett, Edward, 103. Franklin, Benjamin, 1. Freneau, Philip, 36. Gayarr^, Charles ifitienne Arthur, 227. Hale, Edward Everett, 352. Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 102. Hamilton, Alexander, 27. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 141. Henry, Patrick, 11. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 365. Hildreth, Richard, 150. Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 174. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 249. Howe, Julia Ward, 337. Irving, Washington, 69. Jackson, Helen Hunt, 315. James, Henry, 225. Jay, John, 20. Jefferson, Thomas, 17. Johnston, Richard Malcolm, 356. Judd, Sylvester, 188. Kent, James, 45. King, Thomas Starr, 233. Leland, Charles Godfrey, 382. Lincoln, Abraham, 208. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 177. Lowell, James Russell, 339. Lowell, Robert Trail Spence, 302. Madison , James, 25. Marsh, George Perkins, 159. Marshall, John, 34. Melville, Herman, 321. Mitchell, Donald Grant, 361. Motley, John Lothrop, 268. Paine, Thomas, 13. Palfrey, John Gorham, 130. Parker, Theodore, 199. Parkman, Francis, 367. 390 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Parsons, Thomas William, 329. Percival, James Gates, 90. Phillips, Wendell, 283. Pierpont, John, 57. Pike, Albert, 242. Pinkney, Edward Coate, 135. Poe, Edgar Allan, 106. Prescott, William Hickling, 92. Saxe, John Godfrey, 290. Seward, William Henry, 156. Simms, William Gilmore, 191. Stoddard, Richard Henry, 385. Story, William Wetmore, 327. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 257. Street, Alfred Billings, 213. Taylor, Bayard, 277. Thoreau, Henry David, 203. Ticknor, George, 121. Timrod, Henry, 307. Trumbull, John, 22. Very, Jones, 264. Wallace, William Ross, 266. Washington, George, 15. Wasson, David Atwood, 297. Webster, Daniel, 64. Webster, Noah, 49. Whipple, Edwin Percy, 292. Whitman, Walt, 331. Whittier, John Greenleaf , 235. Wilde, Richard Henry, 68. Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 153. Willson, -Byron Forceythe, 294. Winthrop, Robert Charles, 246. Winthrop, Theodore, 304. Wirt, William, 43. Woolman, John, 6. CROWELL'S NEW BOOKS. 1 A HISTORY OF FRANCE. By Victor Duruy, member of the French Academy. 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