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 a Book of ■^taec anb Vttet 
 
 WRITTEN IN AID OF 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE INSTITUTION 
 
 
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 BOSTON 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 ^ I ^HIS little volume is offered by friends of 
 the Institution, in the hope that it may 
 quicken the sympathies and awaken the in- 
 terest of those who love the younger members 
 of society, in the welfare of The Children's 
 Hospital. 
 
 The objects of the Hospital must commend 
 themselves to every one, — the medical and 
 surgical care of sick children ; the study of 
 the diseases of infancy and childhood ; and the 
 instruction of young women in the nursing of 
 sick children. An institution having such foun- 
 dations must certainly possess the confidence, 
 as it should receive the support, of a benevolent 
 community. 
 
 The Children's Hospital, 1429 Washington Street, 
 Boston, November 21, 1873. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Nature and History in Europe E. H. Chapin. 
 Hints towards an Essay on 
 
 Bothersome People 
 In Memoriam .... 
 The Gifts of Children, 
 In Early AutuxMN . , 
 Bane and Antidote 
 The Holy Child . 
 "Baby Troll" . . : 
 Intellectual Character 
 
 y. T. Fields. 
 
 19 
 
 
 35 
 
 S. Osgood. . . 
 
 41 
 
 A.F. .... 
 
 45 
 
 E.E.Hale. . 
 
 49 
 
 R. Collyer. . 
 
 57 
 
 H. P.C. . . 
 
 67 
 
 E. P. Whipple 
 
 71 
 
NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 
 
 By E. H. Chapin. 
 
NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 
 
 IN Europe, Nature is inextricably associated 
 with History. Almost every rood and acre, 
 every stream and hill, has assumed a human 
 interest. It preserves the memoiy of some 
 achievement that has worked into the destinies 
 of man. The decayed castles which constitute 
 such a peculiar feature in European scenery, 
 and which rise before us upon so many lonely 
 hills, especially combine this double interest of 
 nature and humanity. One can hardly look at 
 them without thinking of the form of society 
 which they once represented, and the powerful 
 influences which have proceeded from those 
 walls. And even when stripped of all the fan- 
 cies of legend, we may think also how much 
 has transpired within those walls of the deepest 
 human interest, — the joys and sorrows, and 
 sins and shames. But now, as they are slowly 
 crumbling down and growing indistinguishable 
 
lO NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 
 
 from the soil on which they stand, nature inter- 
 feres, and never appears more suggestive in its 
 loveliness than when it weaves its garlands 
 among the ruins, and sets its brightest flowers 
 against the cold, gray stones, as it were in gen- 
 tle sympathy with all that vanished life, and to 
 assure us that in this world of passion and of 
 change there is that which is greater than both 
 nature and humanity, — a love that is ever ten- 
 der, and a spirit that is ever young. 
 
 The natural scenery of Europe has been so 
 transmuted into historical expression, that it 
 much resembles one of its own grand cathedrals, 
 emblazoned with heraldries, carved into achieve- 
 ments, every niche occupied by some effigy of 
 hero or saint or martyr, while at almost eveiy 
 step your feet press upon some memorable grave. 
 Concerning a large portion of it we may say 
 what has been said of Italy, " The memory sees 
 more than the eye." The historical associa- 
 tions overpower the landscape. We value an 
 actual sight of the physiognomy of cities, chiefly 
 because thus we are personally introduced to 
 the transactions for which they are so famous. 
 The country around Frankfort is charming. 
 The old imperial city sits with unpretending 
 dignity in the midst of the pleasant Rhine-land 
 
NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. II 
 
 which beyond swells into the beautiful outline 
 of the Taunus hills. It is a city teeming with 
 modern enterprise, — quite American in many 
 of its aspects. But through all its busy streets 
 and bustling squares quivers the golden light 
 of fame and story. One steps from the house 
 in which Goethe was born to the house in which 
 Luther lived. And " the e3^e of memory " sees 
 those ancient gables, that old cathedral, and 
 the Eschenheimer tower looking down upon 
 far other scenes than these, and lets the crowd 
 j3art right and left, while through the quaint 
 and narrow streets moves the procession of the 
 German kings. 
 
 Of course, these instances of the subtle trans- 
 mutation of nature into humanity culminate at 
 the highest points of historical interest. Enter- 
 ing Rome is like going into St. Peter's. At 
 first, the majesty of the whole absorbs all other 
 impressions ; and it is only after a time that the 
 mind begins to grasp the multitude and gran- 
 deur of the details. By a similar law, attention 
 is withheld from the situation. Passing between 
 the files of tombs, from the arch of Drusus 
 along the Appian Way, that stand like lictors 
 before the imperial majesty of Rome, — going 
 from the columns of the Forum to the walls of 
 
12 NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 
 
 the Coliseum, through the very heart of the 
 ancient city, where at every step the mighty 
 past flows around you and lifts you up, — the 
 historical interest so overtops the natural, that 
 it is only accidentally as it were, and by sur- 
 prise, that one becomes acquainted with the 
 rare beauty of the surrounding country. Rid- 
 ing down from Tivoli, and looking through the 
 distance at the Capitol, with its ruins heaved 
 like a wreck against the setting sun, or from 
 some eminence that commands a full view of 
 the Alban and Sabine hills, one discovers how 
 becomingly that mountain horizon, the remotely 
 gleaming sea, and that solitary but not " deso- 
 late " Campagna, form the unique frame of a 
 city whose arteries run through all the nations, 
 and yet which stands apart from all in its sub- 
 lime peculiarity. 
 
 The spot where the free word was spoken, or 
 w^iere the free heart bled, be it the most rugged 
 and barren of all the land, because of this wears 
 a beauty that is immortal. Whether the story 
 of William Tell be a legend or a fact, it is 
 this spirit that lends a deeper grandeur to the 
 mountain shadows, and consecrates with the 
 ideals of a nation the shores of Lake Lucerne. 
 On a lonely spot in Switzerland I stood by 
 
NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 13 
 
 the stone that marks where Zwingli fell ; and 
 there still echoed the last words which he spoke 
 on the disastrous day of Cappel, "They can 
 kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul." 
 Looking at the stained glass in the windows of 
 the great cathedral of Antwerp, still this sug- 
 gestion stole in, and I thought of the more 
 precious crimson that for the people's cause 
 had stained the streets below. In Germany, I 
 rode by fields that have often been furrowed by 
 cannon-shot, and thickly planted with the seeds 
 of war. But then, in the beautiful spring light, 
 they lay all quietly, set with the promise of 
 budding trees, and covered with young clover. 
 And out of such contrasts arose the truth that 
 neither with men nor with communities are the 
 elements of growth upon the surface : the Di- 
 vine chemistry works in the subsoil. Those 
 jDeaceful fields were witnesses, not to undis- 
 turbed repose, but to life developed through 
 agitation. Not when a nation extends in 
 length and breadth, and runs over the top of 
 the ground with material enterprises and luxu- 
 riant success, but when it grows in depth, and 
 is driven to feel its very roots, then is that 
 nation prospering. 
 
 And yet, again, out of this intimate connec- 
 tion of nature with history, there rises a sug- 
 
14 NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 
 
 gestion bearing upon the great problem of man 
 upon the earth. We grow weary of this prob- 
 lem ; we are appalled by it. A single life in 
 the bulk of existence is so insignificant, — so 
 many blossoms falling fruitless to the ground ! 
 generations forming and dissolving like ripples 
 on the stream of Time. And when individual 
 lives must be surrendered for an ideal, and 
 the present spends its energies for a jDostponed 
 result, we ask, " Why should the hero die, and 
 an entire generation smart for something that 
 is to be when the individual is dust, and the 
 generation has vanished ? " I do not find any 
 answer to this question in the aspects of nat- 
 ure alone. Through all this grief and loss it 
 stands silent and unimpassioned. But all over 
 Europe there are certain works which Faith has 
 prompted, which Genius has conceived, which 
 Patience has accomplished, and which indicate 
 that the solution of the world's problem runs 
 outside nature, and is to be found not in any 
 segment of history, but only in the whole of 
 the world's plan. 
 
 I hardly know, in all Europe, of a prospect 
 more sublime and wonderful than that which 
 is seen from the roof of the cathedral of Milan. 
 Looking towards the north and east, far across 
 the plain of Lombardy, the view is bounded by 
 
NATURE AND HISTORY IN EUROPE. 1 5 
 
 the white walls of the Alps, crowned by Monte 
 Rosa glowing with the sunlight. At least, I 
 remember no prospect where the contrast seems 
 more direct between the achievements of man 
 and the aspects of the material world. There 
 are the impregnable bastions, the unsurrendered 
 fortresses of nature. Cold and unmoved they 
 have stood there, taking the morning shadows 
 and the evening glory, while armies and nations 
 have withered at their feet. But there, too, is 
 that pile of magnificent architecture which man 
 has worked at from age to age, in deposits of 
 humble faithfulness, in forms of inspired art, — 
 one generation after another receiving and 
 transmitting the sacred and yet unfinished task, 
 — until, at length, it has risen, an Alps of mar- 
 ble fronting the Alps of rock and snow. So 
 man labors and achieves. Apprehending some- 
 thing that is above nature, individuals and gen- 
 erations find their home in the wide hospitality 
 of a higher world. But their work remains. 
 The edifice of the world's plan, which God 
 designs, which man- helps build, which ages 
 transmit, but which is never completed, slowly 
 rises, like the marble music of the grand cathe- 
 dral of Milan, a symbol of aspiring Faith, and 
 an anthem of Divine Praise. 
 
HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON 
 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 
 
 By J. T. Fields. 
 
HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON 
 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 
 
 MASTER SLOWWORM, the grammarian, 
 on glancing at tlie title of this paper, will 
 affirm, without contradiction, that the word 
 bothersome cannot be found in the dictionary. 
 I retort on our verbal patriarch the equally 
 truthful remark that neither does the word en- 
 thusias?n exist in Shakspeare ! And just there 
 I leave Master Slowworm's objection. 
 
 There are loose superfluous mortals who seem 
 to have come into the world on a special mis- 
 sion to break the Ten Commandments ; and 
 they would do it all at one blow, if possible. 
 But I do not reckon them among the bother- 
 some people of our planet. The law kindly 
 looks after those who thus meddle wickedly 
 with certain portions of the Decalogue, and 
 deals justly with them all. But the hotherers in 
 life escape unpunished, and go to their graves 
 
20 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 unbranded with infamy. Their tombstones 
 are often, nay, commonly, placed in the most 
 respectable corners of the graveyard ; and I 
 have found, not infrequently, the word virtue 
 engraven on their marbles. Amwyances, not 
 sifis, have been their offences against man, 
 woman, and children-kind ; and it was in little 
 things they performed their abominations, while 
 sojourning above ground. 
 
 In yonder breezy mound sleeps all that was 
 mortal of Mr. Benjamin Borax. The inscrip- 
 tion above his bones does not record ail his 
 worldly accomplishments. He had one trait 
 which the stone-cutter has omitted ; and I refer 
 to it, in passing, simply in justice to B. B.'s 
 remains. Having had his acquaintance forty 
 long and tedious years, I am qualified to speak 
 feelingly of the man ; and I do it without a 
 particle of malice, or exultation at his removal 
 from my " list of friends." But I will say that, 
 while he was living, after an experience elon- 
 gated through the period I have mentioned, 
 death had no longer any terrors for the mem- 
 bers of my immediate family or myself. B. B. 
 never' meant to "hurt anybody's feelings." 
 " He wouldn't kill a fly " might have been chis- 
 elled with the rest of his churchyard eulogy. 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 21 
 
 But he bothered all who knew him to the very- 
 verge of unforgiveness. When he entered your 
 house, fear fell upon all its inmates; for his 
 want of tact and courtesy, his utter oblivion 
 to those small decencies which make social life 
 sweet and commendable, often rendered his pres- 
 ence, not to speak it profanely, little short of 
 infernal. Bearing about an incapacity for hap- 
 piness on his countenance, he would come 
 unsmiling and unbidden into your nursery, and 
 frighten, by the \^xy awkwardness in his face, 
 the small occupants almost into idiocy. Not 
 knowing how to appi'oach the ijifant sense, he 
 bothered the little ones by his miscalculations 
 at direful pleasantry with them. Dickens men- 
 tions a horrid propensity which some people 
 have of rumpling the hair of small boys, as if 
 they were little dogs that ought to be rubbed 
 up somewhere. No sooner does a sleek little 
 fellow enter the room, with his hair " all in 
 order for company," than up starts some great 
 stupid visitor to begin a friendship with the lad 
 by wobbliftg up his carefully brushed locks into 
 a tangled mop of uncomeliness. Such a both- 
 ersome old towzer was B. B. ; and I confess it 
 was not without a secret satisfaction that I once 
 saw little Peter F. administer him a sturdy kick 
 
2 2 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 on his unprotected ankles during the very act 
 of mangUng up the urchin's prett}' golden curls. 
 When I called Peter to account next morning 
 for this belligerent outbreak of temper, he said, 
 with considerable emphasis, that he 'd " do it 
 again, if Mr. Borax incddh'd with him." ]\Ied- 
 dled with ///;// ! (P. F. at that time was aged 
 six, and went to bed habitually, without a mur- 
 mur, at eight o'clock !) 
 
 Children hate to be bothered with questions, 
 both in and out of school ; and yet how we 
 bore them with catechismal demands, almost in 
 their veiy cradles. As soon as they are old 
 enough to stammer out a reply, we arraign their 
 little wits, and seek to make them respond to 
 such foolish whimsies as, " How old was Methu- 
 selah ? ■ * " Who discovered America ? " " \A'hat 
 do two and two make ? " and the like. Ner- 
 vous little Bob R. was nearly frightened to 
 death one day, when bungling old Parson Pew, 
 in his hard, unsmiling way, with a voice like 
 thunder, asked him suddenly, " \Mio made the 
 world in six days, and rested on the seventh ? " 
 " / did ! " screamed the child, bursting into 
 tears, " hut — / 7/ — ficrcr — do so — any more I " 
 Poor Bob was bothered into assuming to him- 
 self the formation of the Universe, and told a 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 23 
 
 sinless lie in order to blurt out a promise of 
 future good conduct. 
 
 Emerson, in one of his wise, characteristic 
 sentences, says we sometimes meet a person 
 who, if good manners had not existed, would 
 have invented them. I know a cumberer of my 
 neighborhood who would have originated both- 
 ersome bad ones, if the article had not pre- 
 viously been contrived. He brings his total 
 wealth of infelicities with him wherever he goes. 
 When he enters your dwelling, mental chaos 
 begins. He is anxious and peppery, albeit he 
 is uncertain, even to the very Anno Domini in 
 which he is at present breathing and fuming. 
 He looks encyclopedias, but he utters himself 
 in primers. He is a perfect master of Misin- 
 formatiGii. His mind could be dispensed with, 
 like a decayed turnip, or an out-of-date oyster ; 
 and he forgets an event before he knows it. 
 Gravity and lassitude would better become his 
 lack-brain-itudenarian habit ; but he chooses to 
 be conversational and informative. He never 
 keeps an appointment. Every thing " slips his 
 mind." He carries two watches, but he never 
 knows the time of day ; nor (I am bound to say 
 it) of night, either. Once seated at your winter 
 fireside, he " outwatches the bear." He begins 
 
24 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 a stor}' as the clock strikes tAvelve, and when 
 the coal is declining to burn any longer. It is 
 near one when the uneasy shadow departs, vol- 
 unteering, as he goes, the unsolicited remark 
 that he is " sure to come again next week, when 
 he hopes to find me in better spirits." 
 
 I was charmed with J. W.'s experience with a 
 ponderous country neighbor of his not long ago, 
 who would " drop in " just as the family were all 
 pointing bedward, and then bother them for an 
 hour or two with puffy accounts of his ailments. 
 J. W. keeps a parrot, — one of the most sapient 
 of birds, — and he lets the chattering, compan- 
 ionable creature walk about the room, strutting, 
 with habitual self-importance, here and there as 
 pretentious fancy dictates. One night W.'s un- 
 prepossessing neighbor settled himself, about 
 nine o'clock, in front of the crackling logs, and 
 began his usual hypochondriac recital. The 
 seance threatened to be prolonged into midnight. 
 Obadiah's droning voice went sounding on its 
 " dim and perilous way ; " and now and then 
 one of the female members of the family glided 
 noiselessly out of the room, unnoticed by the 
 dreary visitor. J. W. felt the need of all his 
 Christian fortitude, and was making up his 
 mind for a sitting never equalled on a similar 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 25 
 
 occasion in length, when the parrot, spying 
 around Obadiah's legs, discovered a bare spot 
 lying between the hitched-up trowsers and the 
 adjacent stocking. Working his way cautiously 
 under the chair, while the narrator was deeply 
 engaged in dull discourse, the bird suddenly 
 pounced upon the uncovered limb, and adroitly 
 nipped out a piece about the size of a small 
 blister. The pain caused Obadiah to spring 
 into the air ; and, seizing his hat, he left the 
 house, vowing vengeance on the " pesky par- 
 rot." And to this day he declares he will never 
 enter J. W.'s mansion again, "so long as that 
 tarnal bird is round." 
 
 There is a kind of long-drawn bothersome 
 visitor, who has a habit of disappointing his 
 host and hostess by constantly making little 
 feints of going away, but never quite accom- 
 plishing it. Now he raises himself slowly from 
 his chair, and your cheated spirits rise with 
 him ! He is about to say " good-night," you 
 think. He is preparing to depart ! His figure 
 is partly out of the seat in which he has been 
 for two hours planted ! He seems fairly under 
 way ! One manly effort more, and you are 
 free ! Vain hope ! it is only to settle himself 
 more firmly that he stretches up, for a moment, 
 
26 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 his awful form. Down he sinks again, and 
 you are booked for another hour of " dire dis- 
 aster and supine defeat " ! O ye moths of pre- 
 cious moments ! affable wolves of time ! who 
 eat up our veiy seed-brain, and give us noth- 
 ing in return but unprofitable husks and chaff ! 
 What golden hours ye have remorselessly de- 
 stroyed, feeding upon those priceless, hoarded 
 evenings that never can be restored, — nights 
 that seemed made for study and "the mind's 
 most apt endeavor '' ! 
 
 The Emperor Julius Caesar, on one occasion, 
 proved himself a most bothersome social vis- 
 itor. I read lately one of Cicero's letters to 
 his friend Atticus, describing a visit which the 
 august Julius had been making at his villa j 
 and the epistle gives a most ludicrous account 
 of the Emperor's " dropping in " upon him. It 
 seems that the world's imperial master had sent 
 word to Cicero that he would soon be along his 
 way, and would give him a call. The silver- 
 tongued orator was only too delighted at the 
 promised honor, and immediately hurried oft" a 
 messenger to say, " Come, by all means ; happy 
 to see you any time ; and you must spend sev- 
 eral days with me." On the morning of the 
 bald-headed warrior's expected arrival, we may 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 27 
 
 judge of Cicero's astonishment and alarm, when 
 a courier arrived with the intelligence that 
 Julius was comfortably on his way to the villa, 
 but that he was attended by a thousand mefi, 
 who must also be " put up," as we would say 
 now-a-days ; that is, handsomely fed and shel- 
 tered during the Emperor's little visit. Cicero's 
 accommodations were not extensive, and his 
 dismay corresponded in inverse ratio to the 
 smallness of his quarters. Not anticipating 
 any such addition to his limited hospitalities, 
 he was obliged to send out at once, all over the 
 neighborhood, for tents and provender ; and, 
 borrowing here and there, he managed to make 
 a fair appearance when the great Julius and all 
 his host came riding up. But writing about the 
 affair to Atticus, after the party had gone on, 
 and tranquillity had been restored to his house, 
 he says, " The Emperor was very pleasant, and 
 all that, but, under the circumstances, he is not 
 a man to whom I should ever say again, ' When 
 you are passing this way another time, sir, drop 
 in and give us a call.' " 
 
 But how various the employment of your 
 professionally " bothersome people " ! Kind- 
 hearted B. C. told me he had been bothered 
 for years by a reforming inebriate, who made his 
 
28 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 acquaintance in this wise. B. is an old-fash- 
 ioned clergyman, who allows himself to be at 
 everybody's call ; and, seated one Saturday 
 morning busily " touching up " his sermon for 
 the next day, Susan (his Irish footman, as he 
 calls her) knocked at the study door (B. C. 
 always writes in an apartment up live pairs of 
 stairs), and informed the ^oodi padre that " a gin- 
 tleman warnted to see his Riverence down in 
 the lower intry." Now it is a matter of several 
 minutes, and much expenditure of leg-power, to 
 descend those multitudinous flights which lead 
 into the hall below ; but down goes B., with his 
 ever-smiling, ready courtesy, to meet thegm^/e- 
 man who had so kindly called upon him. B. 
 says a suggestive odor, not at all aqueous, but 
 compounded of various cheap and vile liquors, 
 saluted his nostrils as he approached the vicin- 
 ity of his unknown caller ; and that when he 
 got fairly into the hall he was aware of a pres- 
 ence he had never encountered before. The 
 figure raised its head with difficulty, and thus 
 delivered itself somewhat ostentatiously : " I 
 am a reformed inebriate. Doctor, and, having 
 taken the oath, would humbly beg your River- 
 ence to lend me five dollars to help keep the 
 pledge." B. C. affirms that he could not at tlie 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 29 
 
 moment determine exactly how that precise 
 amount in currency was to help the poor man 
 in the object named, but that he thought it 
 best to " accommodate his caller to the desired 
 sum." Dismissing the whilom inebriate with 
 such counsel as his wise heart can always com- 
 mand, B. went upstairs again to his dutiful 
 task. A week went by, and that morning call 
 had well-nigh vanished from his recollection, 
 when Susan again appeared as heretofore and 
 announced a second visit to the doctor from 
 his unknown friend. Down went the good 
 man in his slippers, anticipating an announce- 
 ment from the poor creature that success had 
 followed his efforts to keep sober, and that he 
 had come to express his gratitude. As B. was 
 going down the last pair of stairs, the man 
 holding firmly on to the baluster below looked 
 up confidingly and said, "Doctor, I \r^ fallen 
 again, and have come for five more ! " "I 
 expostulated with him," said the doctor, in 
 relating the incident to me, " but he would not 
 retire until I had repeated the loan, and now 
 he is constantly /^///;2<^, and spends half his 
 time in my front entry, bothering me for con- 
 tinued fives to enable him to stand up against 
 temptation." 
 
30 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 There is a French proverb which declares 
 that nothing is certain to happen but the unfore- 
 seen; and some bothersome people are con- 
 stantly illustrating the truth of this Gallic mot. 
 G. T., from his youth up, has been a constant 
 exemplification of it. His watchful parents 
 placed iron bars across his nursery windows, 
 but he elected to fall down the backstairs 
 twice during his nonage, and on both occasions 
 damaged his slender chances for being reck- 
 oned a "pretty fellow." All his life long, 
 instead of hitting straight forward, he has both- 
 ered his agonized associates by striking out 
 side-ways without warning, and thus getting 
 worsted in every contest. One can never be 
 sure of him to this day (he is past seventy and 
 alarmingly vigorous), and .he bodiers his best 
 friends by unexpected infelicities of thought 
 and action to that degree that they sometimes 
 breathe the pious wish that he were an aged 
 angel flying somewhere else. To enumerate 
 his unlimited feats in the art of botheration 
 would require the pen of a ready writer. 
 
 If G. ' T. always does the wrong thing, his 
 kinsman L. as incontinently says the wrong 
 one, and bothers people in that way. After 
 reading and delighting in that wonderful ro- 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 31 
 
 mance, " The Marble Faun," on being intro- 
 duced to the distinguished author, L. asked 
 him if "he had ever bee?i in Italy J^ And it is 
 related that he innocently inquired of Mrs. 
 Stowe one day "if she had looked much into 
 the subject of slavery " ! " Do you take sugar 
 in your coffee, Mr. L. ? " asked that careful, 
 almost too immaculate, housekeeper, the hos- 
 pitable lady of Joy Cottage, as she handed him 
 a cup of her aromatic beverage. " Never when 
 the coffee is good," replied L., bowing his hom- 
 age to our admirable hostess. A few moments 
 afterwards we heard his loud explosive voice 
 calling after Tom, the servant, to ^^pass the 
 sugar " ! Now there is nothing positively bad 
 about L. : on the contrary, there is much that 
 is positively good in him. At the first tap of 
 the drum he ran off to the war, and among its 
 battle-records there are no pages more fearless 
 than his. Out of his modest income he sup- 
 ports one or more indigent lads (sons of his 
 dead comrades) at the University. He is gen- 
 erous without fault ; but he is tranquilly bother- 
 some in the way I have indicated to the very 
 margin of patient endurance. He is a saint in 
 morals, but a desperate offender in manners. 
 My old acquaintance W. H. says the people 
 
32 HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY 
 
 who bother him most are those human Curi- 
 osity terriers who watch all your sayings and 
 doings, and never let you stir without followfng 
 you up everywhere with this keen scent. They 
 wish to know "all about you." They seem 
 always on a cheerful tour of investigation 
 among other people's faults or foibles. Their 
 constant cr}^ is " Lo here ! " or " Lo there ! " 
 They study " to find out your motives " even. 
 They desire to be informed (for their own sat- 
 isfaction) what actuated you to move thus or 
 thus. Tristram Shandy called this class of 
 botherers " Motive IMongers," and accuses his 
 own father of being one of them. Tristram 
 averred that the old gentleman was a very dan- 
 gerous person for a man to sit by, either laugh- 
 ing or crying, for he generally knew your motive 
 for doing both "much better than you knew 
 it yourself." Silas W. carried this searching 
 demand of reasons for conduct to such a length 
 that I once heard him express a decided aver- 
 sion to Moses, " for," said he, " 1 never could 
 exactly fathom that man's motives ! " 
 
 Among the smaller brood of bothersome 
 people, my cousin G. reckons those dense- 
 witted, circumstantial souls who will interrupt 
 your best story with a doubt or a denial of its 
 
ON BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 
 
 33 
 
 verity. They live in an atmosphere of imper- 
 fect sympathies, and goad you to blasphemy 
 almost by their stolid unreceptivit}^ The man 
 who robs your anecdote of its prosperity by an 
 ill-timed arrest of its recital, says G., would 
 bury his own father before the remains are 
 decently ready for sepulture. 
 
 I had written thus far in these " Hints 
 towards an Essay" when a restless neighbor 
 of mine called to bear me away, over a hot 
 road, to view a bloated boulder he had dis- 
 covered, miles off, on one of his peregrinations. 
 This kind, mistaken soul constantly bothers 
 me by insisting on " shoiving me f/iings " I do 
 not desire to see. Ifis mania is that of an 
 Indicator. Some '' prospect," some famous 
 kitchen-garden, somebody's pig or poultry, any 
 thing big enough "to show," transports him 
 into a fever of exhibition, and 3^ou never meet 
 him but he burns to take you somewhere to 
 see something, until you long to bequeath him 
 as a constant resident to the next county. 
 
 But the length of this article is, I perceive, 
 already a glaring illustration of my subject, and 
 unwittingly I become one of the '' Botherso7ne 
 People " I attempt to describe ! 
 
w 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 ERT thou wearied with the labor, 
 With the fretfuhiess and strife. 
 
 Wearied with the noontide scorching, 
 And the busy whirl of life ? 
 
 Was thy gentle, lowly spirit 
 Vexe'd with the ceaseless din, 
 
 With the voices of contention, 
 With the sorrow and the sin ? 
 
 Didst thou droop beneath the burden, 
 Meekly won and meekly borne. 
 
 But perchance too rudely pressing, 
 And perchance too duly worn ? 
 
 On the wave, so gently rocking, 
 On the tide, with ebb and flow, — 
 
 'Mid the sparkling foam of ocean. 
 With its murmurs soft and low; — - 
 
 As a memorial of Miss T., ^Yho, from the first year of 
 the Hospital, proved herself a gentle and faithful friend 
 to the little patients. She was drowned, while bathing 
 at the sea-shdre, on the 24th of August, 1S73, ^^^ ^^Y 
 before her intended return to her home. 
 
36 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Such the couch that wooed the wearied, 
 
 To repose thee for a while, 
 Basking in the summer gloiy, 
 
 Gazing on the summer's smile ; 
 
 Floating on and calmly dreaming 
 Of a rest that ne'er should cease. 
 
 Of a haven whose blue waters 
 
 Rock the soul in changeless peace. 
 
 Whilst the sun-bathed, snowy pinions 
 Of the sea-birds, in their flight, 
 
 Gleamed like coming wings of angels. 
 Glistening with celestial light. 
 
 Once more look upon the beauty 
 Of that scene, so sweet and fair 
 
 That man might ever gaze, and wonder 
 How so much of heaven came there. 
 
 Then the cradling wave hath rocked thee 
 To a slumber deep and still ; 
 
 To a rest that knows no waking 
 In this world of care and ill. 
 
 And, indeed, we would not wake thee. 
 Though our hearts are sad and sore ; 
 
 For thine eyes have opened, wondering, 
 On a loniied-for brighter shore. 
 
IX MEMORIAM. 37 
 
 While the wave's soft murmurs blended 
 In the strain of music, sweet, 
 
 Wafted from the crystal waters 
 Where the choirs of angels meet. 
 
 No pale mourners round thy death-bed, 
 
 No sad parting and no tears. 
 Racking pain, nor weary turning, 
 
 Torturing doubt, nor darkening fears. 
 
 Meekly didst thou bear life's burden 
 Through the changing night and day, 
 
 Shrinking from the noise and tumult. 
 And the busy, thronged highway. 
 
 Meet it was thus, still and calmh^, 
 Thou shouldst float into thy rest, 
 
 And bright angel pilots guide thee 
 To the harbor of the blest. 
 
THE GIFTS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 By Samuel Osgood. 
 
THE GIFTS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 I ANSWER gladly to the request to add a 
 word of mine for your little book of love 
 offerings. I remember well my visit to The 
 Children's Hospital last winter, and what sun- 
 shine gleamed upon their faces when their 
 kind attendants came in sight to care for them. 
 If there was a cloud of pain or grief anywhere, 
 it was sure to pass away or else to lift up on 
 its bosom the bow of hope and promise. I was 
 glad to see so wise and kindly a provision for 
 the taste and fancy and spirits of the children, 
 as well as for their health and comfort. Flow- 
 ers, pictures, and other pleasant and suggestive 
 objects about the rooms of the hospital, be- 
 guiled many a weary hour, and brought the glee 
 of the playground, the green of the meadow, 
 the shade of trees, and the sparkle of waters to 
 these little ones who had not strength to ramble 
 abroad among their more robust companions. 
 
42 THE GIFTS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 We thus recognize a vital principle that is 
 too often f 01 gotten in the care of little children. 
 Because their rational powers are not devel- 
 oped, and they do not know many things, nor 
 reason logically, we are apt to think that they 
 have little of any reason. But the truth is, that 
 they have the faculty of reason in the bud, or 
 in the child's stage of expression ; and that, as 
 the rose or the lily in its bud feels the rain 
 and the sunshine in all their mysterious power, 
 so the child's mind is acted upon by whatever 
 is good and true and beautiful before the rea- 
 soning faculties are so fully open as to compre- 
 hend their nature or to analyze their functions. 
 The consequence is, that whatever is most per- 
 fect in nature and art, in human examples or 
 in religious expression, should be set before 
 children ; and they should be encouraged to 
 feel and enjoy the excellence which they can- 
 not fully as yet understand. They are compar- 
 atively dull indeed in learning written words ; 
 but they are veiy quick in taking in the living 
 voice. They are troubled by set rules and 
 abstract definitions ; but they rejoice in real 
 objects of nature, in actual persons and visible 
 life, so that there is no limit to what a little 
 child may learn and love when brought up in 
 
THE GIFTS OF CHILDREN. 43 
 
 the true life school. This is the secret of the 
 Kindergarten ; and there can be no reasonable 
 doubt that a new age of light and joy is coming 
 to our children from its influence. 
 
 Children can in this way receive the best 
 gifts; and so too they can give them. They 
 can express the best affections and virtues ; 
 they can be ministering spirits of truth and 
 love ; they can be helpers in a thousand ways 
 at home and at school and church. Without 
 any studied artifice they can have the divine 
 art that follows the inspiration of love, and 
 wins from the Holy Spirit the most excellent 
 of graces. I have had a little playmate and 
 prattler of four years old with me here in the 
 woods this summer ; and he has made a school 
 of knowledge and delight wherever he ram- 
 bled. He interpreted every tree and flower, 
 stream and rock, bird and beast anew in his 
 sprightly way, and was never content until he 
 had made over something of his overflowing 
 glee to his bearded companion, who saw his 
 own darling daughter's features in this child's 
 face. He has gone now to his city home ; and 
 his grandfather sends this little offering to your 
 book for the Fair in his name and love. 
 
IN EARLY AUTUMN. 
 By a. F. 
 
 BEAUTY of the autumn morn, 
 Comfort of the earth forlorn ! 
 Grace of summer cla3^s is dead, 
 Thou dost wear a grace instead. 
 
 Moving of the restless ocean. 
 Breath of life is in thy motion ! 
 Yellow shimmer of birch leaves 
 Dancing when the south wind grieves. 
 
 Air is full of huriying sound, 
 Seed is hastening to the ground, 
 Hours speed onward to the night. 
 Early shines the pale moonlight. 
 
 Spirits who have autumns known. 
 Whither, now, oh, whither flown ! 
 Dews have fallen on your beds. 
 Blossoms round your sleeping heads. 
 
 Hurry, hurry, autumn hours ! 
 Put to sleejD these radiant flowers ! 
 Ye do promise me new Spring, 
 Where undying bards shall sing. 
 
BANE AND ANTIDOTE. 
 
 By E. E. Hale. 
 
BANE AND ANTIDOTE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT is said that Mr. George Prendergast 
 slipped on the ice, in walking. A young 
 lady who saw him laughed fiendishly. The 
 gentleman rose and said, " I am glad you 
 were pleased, madam," with a sad smile ; and, 
 touching his hat gracefully, he limped slowly 
 away. 
 
 Now the young lady whom he addressed had 
 not a hard heart ; and, on reflection, she per- 
 ceived with dismay that in her laughter she had 
 unnecessarily wounded the feelings of a human 
 being who, for aught she knew, might have as 
 delicate susceptibilities as her own. Nay, did 
 not that sad smile with which he spoke as he 
 parted, and the grave gesture of his farewell 
 salute, show that this was so ? " Who am I ? " 
 she said to herself, sighing, "that I should 
 laugh like a fiend, say, rather like a hyena, at 
 
50 BANE AND ANTIDOTE. 
 
 the sufferings of a fellow-being ? " Pensive, she 
 went home, and at once fell ill. 
 [An interval of two years and five months.] 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 We left the penitent Miss Buchu — such was 
 the name of the girl who laughed so fiendishly 
 — at the moment when she fell ill of shame 
 and remorse. These struck in. She died. Be- 
 fore her death, Mr. George Prendergast wrote 
 to forgive her. But it was too late for her 
 recovery. 
 
 Her father had idolized his only child. 
 " What," he cried, " are to me large profits and 
 a daily extending business ? " He died also. 
 
 For the medicine he made and sold was not 
 intended for a mind diseased. No ! It was 
 suited to fever and agur, and that not 'Agar 
 of the desert, but of the low countries. The 
 formula or recipe died with him. \Miole na- 
 tions sickened and shook, and there was for 
 them no " Ready Remedy." They took to their 
 beds, and the price of feathers and of mattresses 
 
 TOSO, 
 
BANE AND ANTIDOTE. 5 1 
 
 These nations were wheat-producing nations. 
 For want of the " Ready Remedy," they pro- 
 duced no wheat that year, and many other 
 nations were obliged to eat potatoes. 
 
 These nations produced beef. In their ago- 
 nies of hunger they ate it all, and sold none, save 
 enough calves' feet for jelly for one empress. 
 
 All the people of Africa, south of a line 
 drawn north-west through the Victoria Nyanza, 
 had dug the chogga root, used by Mr. Buchu 
 for the " Ready Remedy." All these people 
 perished ; so that they are now omitted from 
 the geographies and the maps. 
 
 Such were the fatal consequences of the un- 
 advised laughter of a girl not totally depraved. 
 [An interval of seven months and two years.] 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Other winters came on. George Prendergast 
 again slipped on the ice. As he rises, in pain 
 as before, behold a school-girl, with a golden 
 chinchilla muff, rushes forward with an aspect 
 of sincere grief, to render assistance ! She 
 drops her books ! 
 
 [An interval of one half second.] 
 
52 BANE AND ANTIDOTE, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Are you, then, much injured ? " said this 
 Saxon Hebe to Mr. G. Prendergast, whom we 
 were obliged to leave upon the ground. Mr. 
 Prendergast, at the moment, was not able to 
 speak, all the extensor muscles of his frame 
 being paralyzed for some minutes. " Hebe " 
 brought him water from a rill, otherwise called 
 the fountain, by Blackstone Square, applied 
 cologne, furnished by Mr. Noyes, and put 
 thieves' vinegar to his nose. 
 
 Soon he recovered. First he winked. Then 
 he sneezed. Then, with ten successive titilla- 
 tions, his fingers and his thumbs came to new 
 consciousness. 
 
 " Is this real ? " said he, " or am I in a 
 dream ? " 
 
 " 'Deed ! I don't know," said the Hebe. 
 
 " You speak," said he. " Then I still live." 
 
 Cheered and refreshed by the ministrations 
 of the unknown, George Prendergast recovered. 
 He went at once to his work at the office of the 
 Globe. 
 
 His duty was to insert the arrival of the 
 " Petrel " at Singapore. 
 
 That duty he did. 
 
BANE AND ANTIDOTE. 53 
 
 " Ha ! " said Mr. Wilmarth, the next morn- 
 ing, " the ' Petrel ' is in ! Had I not known it, 
 I should have sold the ' Storm-bird.' " 
 
 He did not sell her. He sent her to Japan. 
 She took the news of the Czar's recovery. 
 
 It came just in time to relieve Admiral 
 Orloff. 
 
 He returned home overland. He entered 
 into partnership with the Flynns. 
 
 They built six steam-launches for navigating 
 the two Nyanzas. 
 
 All the launches arrived in time for the rainy 
 season. All made good voyages. Trade re- 
 vived. The chogga root was cultivated by set- 
 tlers of a higher race. New nations appear on 
 new maps. All this welfare and success came 
 from the ministry of an unknown but lovely 
 girl. 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 By Robert Collyer. 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 I REMEMBER once when my people let me 
 go on a summer vacation, I was invited by 
 a friend to go a fishing. It was the first time in 
 my life I ever went on such an errand, after 
 the days when I used to make my own hook 
 out of a pin ; and I am not going to tell what 
 success I had, because there are some things 
 about which it is always best to be silent. I 
 need only say that I came back quite content 
 to be a fisher of men. But I remember one 
 day my friend said, "We will go after trout; 
 there is a clear, swift stream in the heart of 
 those woods, where we are sure to have good 
 sport." If he had spoken of the first person 
 singular, he would have told the truth. I only 
 remember the day as one of a singular and 
 peculiar torment, in which I thought I realized, 
 for the first time in my life, why the old Assyri- 
 ans should have called Beelzebub the God of 
 
58 THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 flies. It was a sweltering August day ; there 
 was not a breath of air to shake the leaves of 
 an aspen, and black flies that would have rouied 
 an army. All this I remember, and then this : 
 that, in plunging along the stream, through a 
 sort of evil marsh, I came at last to a little 
 space of green sward — a rood or so — clear of 
 trees, where a tree had some time fallen down 
 toward the river. It was full of decay, — little 
 more than a lump of brown earth. The water 
 washed it, and dashed the spray over the upper 
 surface ; and there, in a crevice, I found a 
 flower, just one blossom, — a sort of blue bell, I 
 think, — with a color like heaven, and a beauty 
 to make a man thank God. It shone in the 
 sun like a sapphire. I could not resist the 
 temptation which came over me to reach out, 
 at some risk, and pluck the bonnie waif of the 
 wilderness ; and it was as sweet as it was beau- 
 tiful, with that shy aroma you must catch on 
 the wing, or it will elude you like the vision 
 of an angel, or the haunting of an exquisite 
 thought. My friend caught his fish ; I caught 
 my flower. It is ten years ago, I think, this 
 summer. The black flies are now a dim mem- 
 ory, and the hot day, and the marsh ; but I can 
 see 'that flower, as I saw it then, a thing of 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 59 
 
 beauty and a joy forever. Its color stays with 
 me, and its form, — more wonderfully beautiful 
 than any antique vase, — its sweetness, and its 
 loneliness, growing there all by itself in the wil- 
 derness, as if it were blessing enough simply to 
 bless a world that cared no more for its worth 
 than the desert cares for the diamond. 
 
 And so as I have thought of my flower these 
 many years, it has grown upon me for an image 
 of something we find now and then in this 
 human life. There are men and women who 
 seem to me to be like that pure treasure of 
 beauty and goodness in the wild, grim woods. 
 They hold in their nature a grace so far above 
 their condition that you wonder, when you see 
 them, how they have managed to attain to this 
 perfection, and then to hold on to it with such 
 a sweet humility. They seem to touch that old 
 mystery our Bible tells of about Melchisedec 
 being without father and mother, and without 
 descent ; and you can only account for them 
 when you say, with Paul, it is the gift of God. 
 It would not seem so strange to see them in 
 some place where all things work together to 
 make such a being ; but to see them there 
 seems like a miracle. They surprise us as my 
 blue bell surprised me in the wilderness of 
 
6o THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 Michigan, and as that bush, laden with ripe cur- 
 rants, surprised Robert Kennicott, one weaiy 
 day, close upon the Arctic circle, when, as he 
 told me, they had been stumbling all day in a 
 desert of black rock and sand. I had a friend 
 once — a mighty Calvinist — who used to fall 
 into trouble sometimes, when his heart would 
 swell so big with the hope for humanity that his 
 creed w^ould crack like the green withes they 
 bound about Samson ; and then he would say, 
 " I tell thee, lad, the Lord has his hidden ones, 
 and my poor old father was one of them. He 
 did not believe much. He could not say he 
 had ever been in grace, or believe he had, and 
 he used to fall asleep reading his Bible ; but a 
 better man, except for that, I never knew in my 
 life. And I tell thee, I believe he has gone to 
 glory." It was a flash out of my old friend's 
 heart into this wonder of a goodness for which 
 he could give no account, — a grace that would 
 fit into no doctrinal terms he knew of, — an 
 election outside all the standards, — a flower 
 that had no business to grow there, and come 
 to that perfection, if the waters of life never 
 brimmed over our boundaries. And I have 
 heard gardeners say that this is their experience 
 with plants. They will sow a thousand seeds, 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 6l 
 
 watch and tend them all alike, and give them 
 an equal chance. But a day comes when one 
 plant in the thousand arrests them ; there is 
 a wonder in it, of shape or color, they never 
 noticed before. In the seed they saw no dif- 
 ference, or the soil, or the culture ; and they 
 cannot account for the thing, except by saying 
 that somehow it has treasured a power the 
 others have missed. Let that be as it may, 
 there the plant stands in its own separate and 
 singular excellence, justified and glorified by 
 its worth. 
 
 And I notice that this is true also of chil- 
 dren. Now and then, here and there, one in 
 ten thousand rises from the ranks and fills the 
 world with wonder. A Whittier or a Greeley in 
 the harsh, forbidding uplands of New Hamp- 
 shire j an Ebenezer Elliott, or a James Mont- 
 gomer)^ in the five century smoke of Shefiield. 
 When we attempt to account for them, we tell 
 about a steadfast father and a tender, deep- 
 hearted mother ; but we forget that ten thou- 
 sand steadfast fathers and deep-hearted mothers 
 raised children with an equal care to fill the 
 ranks and do the ordinary work of the world, 
 — only this one child makes their place like 
 Bethlehem ; and they can no more account for 
 
62 THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 him than they can account for the sun in the 
 sky. There he is, and that is about all we can 
 say about him, standing as my blue bell stood, 
 and as these plants stand in the garden ; sin- 
 gular, separate, not to be accounted for, except 
 we say it is the gift of God. 
 
 And you gain nothing by questioning the 
 possessors of these natures, and so trying to 
 find how they came to do the things that give 
 them the right to their great place. Humanly 
 speaking, they are quite as unconscious how it 
 all came about as my flower was. What they 
 can tell you is that the spirit is in them to will 
 and to do of its good pleasure, and they simply 
 obey the spirit ; but beyond that they can tell 
 you nothing. If they are poets, they must 
 sing ; inventors, they must contrive ; if they are 
 preachers, they must be heard ; and if they are 
 soldiers, they must fight. When their time 
 comes, they must all be what they are ; and so 
 far as they are more than their fellows is not 
 of works, — it is a gift outside all personal merit. 
 Genius may be, as one says, the power to 
 kindle your own fire ; or, as another says, the 
 jDOwer to do the intensest work. It may pos- 
 sibly and probably be both together ; but the 
 pow.er out of which that power came is the 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 63 
 
 mystery, of which they can give no account. 
 And so of all men and women you meet : 
 these greatest and finest natures are the most 
 simple and humble in their estimate of their 
 own powers and possessions. Other people 
 have to tell them what they are worth, or they 
 would never suspect it. I suppose if Paul 
 could come back to this world, and read what 
 has been written about him, he would be more 
 astonished at his own religious genius than 
 ever Luther was, or any other man who has 
 got to the intimate heart of his power. 
 
 This self-consciousness, indeed, is almost al- 
 ways in the inverse ratio of any thing to be 
 conscious about, so that you will be sure to 
 find a writer of doggerel prouder of his lines 
 than a noble poet, and a mere spouter pre- 
 ferring his periods to those of the true orator. 
 And I do not think this is a thing to laugh at 
 when the poor man carries himself modestly. 
 It seems to me to be that sweet endeavor we 
 see in mothers who try to make their least 
 gifted children believe they are as good and 
 clever as their companions if they will only 
 think so. " Brother Hemmingway," Dr. Dean 
 of Portland said once, " the ferryman had no 
 idea you were a clergyman : now I always go 
 
64 THE HOLY CHILD. 
 
 to the conference in my wig." " Precisely, 
 Dr. Dean," the good man rephecl : " you do 
 right, and you have Scripture for it ; for does 
 not Paul say we shall bestow more abundant 
 honor on the part which lacketh ? " 
 
 Only one thing more is to be noticed in this 
 word about the elect and precious ; and that is, 
 they are there where they are wanted to do the 
 work they are sent to do. My blue bell was out 
 there on the root of the old tree, ready to touch 
 a human soul with a new sense of beauty and 
 goodness, and to grow after ten years into such 
 a thought as is possible to me on the gift of 
 God. Once there was such a flower in Africa 
 when a traveller lay down to die. It said to 
 him, " Get up, man, and try again : if I can live 
 in this desert, you can live throicgh it." So he 
 got up and went on, and became one of the 
 men who give us the keys of a continent. A 
 thousand flowers bloomed in England, and got 
 into the heart of a man who must put them in 
 a book. That book got into the hands of a 
 young man who was taking to drink. It en- 
 tranced him so that he felt a divine intoxica- 
 tion take the place of the infernal, drank at the 
 wells of salvation, and grew. to be that Eben- 
 ezer Elliott I have mentioned who wrote the 
 
THE HOLY CHILD. 65 
 
 free-trade ballads which went into the heart of 
 the people, and did as much to break down 
 the wicked corn law monopoly as Cobden or 
 Bright. So as it is with nature it is with 
 man. When the time comes, the man comes ; 
 and he is exactly the man for the time. That 
 truth must be told, — he tells it. That work 
 must be done, — he does it. That revelation 
 must be made, — he makes it. That nation 
 must be saved, — he saves it. That faith must 
 be planted, — he plants it. The Norseman 
 eight hundred years ago comes to Rhode 
 Island : but it is no matter ; the hour has not 
 come ; the time is not ripe. It would not be a 
 New World then, but the Old World over again. 
 Four hundred years pass, the clock strikes the 
 hour, and then a man thinks by day and dreams 
 by night, and goes out, not knowing whither he 
 went, only sure of his divine commission, and 
 discovers America. Ambitious men follow in 
 his track, seeking gold or power or fame : their 
 work comes to nothing. A handful of men 
 come seeking a simple manhood, self-govern- 
 ment, room for their faith ; and that handful of 
 men usher in a new time, holding in its hands 
 the keys of a new heaven and a new earth. 
 One man is wanted to be equal to the demands 
 
66 THE HOLY CHILb. 
 
 of a revolution which will transform the colo- 
 nies into a nation. His mother wants to make 
 him a midshipman under the old flag. She 
 sets her heart on it ; and he is a good, obedient 
 boy, but that will not be possible. The boy 
 grows to be a man, and the man is Washing- 
 ton. Take any other boy, but not this boy. 
 It is settled in the quiet order: we cannot 
 touch that. This is to be the man America 
 needs for her transformation. Always and 
 everywhere there is a man for the time, and a 
 time for the man who has to do a separate and 
 singular work. These high souls are all with- 
 out father and mother, and without descent. 
 They are predestined, — called, justified, and 
 glorified from the foundation of the world. 
 
"BABY TROLL." 
 By H. p. C. 
 
 'T^WO dimpled hands, two dainty feet, 
 
 -*- A head of golden hair ; 
 
 God keep my darling free from sin, 
 Shield her from too much care. 
 
 Two eyes of blue, a form divine 
 
 As human form can be ; 
 Through life, dear one, thy love entwine 
 
 About me loyally. 
 
 My child, thy little hands employ 
 
 In kindly acts of love ; 
 So that this life know no alloy, 
 
 Thy deeds be known above. 
 
 So shall thy feet not turn aside 
 From pastures green and fair ; 
 
 The angels garlands will provide 
 To deck the golden hair. 
 
 Too much of love cannot be given ; 
 
 God counts each falling tear ; 
 Each kiss is registered in heaven, 
 
 In prayer the Lord is near. 
 
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 
 
 By E. p. Whipple. 
 
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 
 
 [From a College Add 7' ess.) 
 
 THE desire, the duty, the necessity of the 
 age in which we live is education, or that 
 culture which develops, enlarges, and enriches 
 each individual intelligence according to the 
 measure of its capacity, by familiarizing it with 
 the facts and laws of nature and human life. 
 But, in this rage for information, we too often 
 overlook the mental constitution of the being 
 w^e would inform, — detaching the apprehensive 
 from the active powers, weakening character 
 by overloading memor}^, and reaping a harvest 
 of imbeciles after we may have flattered our- 
 selves we had sown a crop of geniuses. No 
 person can be called educated until he has 
 organized his knowledge into faculty, and can 
 wield it as a weapon. It is evident that, when 
 a young man leaves his school or college to 
 take his place in the world, it is indispensable 
 
72 INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 
 
 that he he something as well as know some- 
 thing ; and it will require but little experience 
 to demonstrate to him that what he really knows 
 is little more than what he really is, and that 
 his progress in intellectual manhood is not more 
 determined by the information he retains, than 
 by that portion which, by a benign provision of 
 Providence, he is enabled to forget. Youth, to 
 be sure, is his, — youth, in virtue of which he 
 is free of the universe, — youth, with its elastic 
 vigor, its far-darting hopes, its generous impa- 
 tience of prudent meanness, its grand denial of 
 instituted falsehood, its beautiful contempt of 
 accredited baseness, — but youth which must 
 now concentrate its wayward energies, which 
 must discourse with facts and grapple with 
 men, and through strife and struggle, and the 
 sad wisdom of experience, must pass from the 
 vague delights of generous impulses to the as- 
 sured joy of manly principles. The moment 
 he comes in contact with the stern and stub- 
 born realities which frown on his entrance into 
 practical life, he will find that power is the soul 
 of knowledge, and character the condition of 
 intelligence. He will discover that intellectual 
 success depends primarily on qualities which 
 are not strictly intellectual, but personal and 
 constitutional. 
 
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 73 
 
 The test of success is influence; that is, 
 the power of shaping events by informing, 
 guiding, animating, controlling other minds. 
 Whether this influence be exerted directly in 
 the world of practical affairs, or indirectly in 
 the world of ideas, its fundamental condition is 
 still force of individual being ; and the amount 
 of influence is the measure of the degree of 
 force, just as an effect measures a cause. The 
 characteristic of intellect is insight, — insight 
 into things and their relations ; but then this 
 insight is intense or languid, clear or confused, 
 comprehensive or narrow, exactly in proportion 
 to the weight and power of the individual who 
 sees and combines. It is not so much the 
 intellect that makes the man, as the man the 
 intellect: in every act of earnest thinking, 
 the reach of the thought depends on the press- 
 ure of the will j and we would therefore empha- 
 size and enforce, as the primiti\'e requirement 
 of intellectual success, that discipline of the 
 individual which develops dim tendencies into 
 positive sentiments, sentiments into ideas, and 
 ideas into abilities, — that discipline by which 
 intellect is penetrated through and through 
 with the qualities of manhood, and endowed 
 with arms as well as eyes. This is Intellectual 
 Character. 
 
74 INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 
 
 Now it should be thundered in the ears 
 of every young man who has passed through 
 that course of instruction ironically styled 
 education, "What do you intend to be, and 
 what do you intend to do? Do you pur- 
 pose to play at living, or do you purpose to 
 live? — to be a memory, a .word-cistern, a fee- 
 ble prater on illustrious themes, one of the 
 world's thousand chatterers, or a will, a power, 
 a man? No varnish and veneer of scholar- 
 ship, no command of the tricks of logic and 
 rhetoric, can ever make you a positive force in 
 the world. Look around you in the community 
 of educated men, and see how many, who 
 started on their career with minds as bright 
 and eager and hearts as hopeful as yours, have 
 been mysteriously arrested in their growth, — 
 have lost all the kindling sentiments which glo- 
 rified their youthful studies, and dwindled into 
 complacent echoes of surrounding mediocrity ; 
 have begun, indeed, to die on the very thresh- 
 old of manhood, and stand in society as tombs 
 rather than temples of immortal souls. See, 
 too, the wide disconnection between knowledge 
 and life ; heaps of information piled upon little 
 heads ; everybody speaking, — few who have 
 earned the right to speak ; maxims enough to 
 
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. 75 
 
 a woful lack of great 
 hearts, in which reason, right, and truth, regal 
 and militant, are fortified and encamped ! Now 
 this disposition to skulk the austere require- 
 ments of intellectual growth in an indolent sur- 
 render of the mind's power of self- direction 
 must be overcome at the outset, or, in spite 
 of your grand generalities, you will be at the 
 mercy of eveiy bullying lie, and strike your 
 colors to every mean truism, and shape your 
 life in accordance with every low motive which 
 the strength of genuine wickedness or genuine 
 stupidity can bring to bear upon you ! " There 
 is no escape from slavery, or the mere pretence 
 of freedom, but in radical individual power ; 
 and all solid intellectual culture is simply the 
 right development of individuality into its true 
 intellectual form. 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son. 
 
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