FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE.”
By ALBERT M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.
1. Q. Who is the author of Evangeline? A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
2. Q. When and where was Longfellow born, and when did he die? A. He was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and died March 24, 1882.
3. Q. To what did he devote the greater part of his life? A. To literature, and to teaching in connection with literature.
4. Q. What was the first volume he published? A. An essay on the moral and devotional poetry of Spain.
5. Q. What are two of his best known prose works. A. “Outre-mer” and “Hyperion.”
6. Q. What is perhaps the best known of Longfellow’s short poems? A. “The Psalm of Life.”
7. Q. What celebrated work did Longfellow translate out of the Italian? A. Dante’s “Divina Commedia.”
8. Q. Name three of the longer well known poems that Longfellow wrote. A. “The Song of Hiawatha,” “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and “Evangeline.”
9. Q. On what historical incident is the story of “Evangeline” founded? A. The forcible removal of the French from Acadia by the English in 1755.
10. Q. By what name is Acadia now known? A. Nova Scotia.
11. Q. How many of the Acadians were sent out of the country at this time? A. About three thousand.
12. Q. To what parts of the United States were they taken? A. To North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
13. Q. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, what occurred as to many families? A. They were separated, and some at least never came together again.
14. Q. What is the story of Evangeline? A. It is the story of such a separation.
15. Q. What is the measure in which the story of Evangeline is written? A. It is what is commonly known as English dactylic hexameter.
16. Q. What is a dactyl? A. It is a poetical foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.
17. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.
18. Q. Name some noted classical poems written in dactylic hexameter. A. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Æneid.
19. Q. With what description does part the first of Evangeline open? A. With a description of Grand Pré in 1755.
20. Q. What person is introduced as the wealthiest farmer of Grand Pré? A. Benedict Bellefontaine, the father of Evangeline.
21. Q. What was the age of Evangeline at the time the story opens? A. Seventeen.
22. Q. Who was the accepted suitor of Evangeline? A. Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith.
23. Q. Who attested the contract for the marriage of Evangeline and Gabriel? A. René Leblanc, the notary.
24. Q. On the 5th of September, 1755, the day following the execution of the marriage contract, what had the male inhabitants of Grand Pré and the surrounding country been summoned to do by proclamation of Col. Winslow, the commander of the New England troops? A. To attend him in the church at Grand Pré to hear a communication which the governor had sent.
25. Q. How many assembled in the church on this occasion? A. Four hundred and eighteen men and boys.
26. Q. After they had assembled, what did Winslow do? A. He surrounded the church with a guard and made all the inmates prisoners.
27. Q. What did he state was the decision of the king in reference to them? A. That all their lands, dwellings, and cattle were forfeited to the crown, and they themselves were to be transported to other provinces.
28. Q. How long were they kept prisoners in the church? A. Until the 10th of September.
29. Q. While the people were being taken on board the fleet for transportation from their homes, what occurred to the village of Grand Pré? A. It was set on fire and burned.
30. Q. What became of the father of Evangeline? A. During the delay on the shore he died, and his body was buried by the seaside.
31. Q. How were Gabriel and Evangeline separated? A. They were taken to different ships.
32. Q. In what does the story of Evangeline thereafter chiefly center? A. In her long and fruitless search for Gabriel.
33. Q. To what city in the South did a large number of the Acadians go? A. New Orleans.
34. Q. Where did they form settlements? A. On both sides of the lower Mississippi.
35. Q. In what part of her wanderings is Evangeline first specially introduced to the reader? A. With a band of Acadians on a raft descending the Mississippi toward these settlements.
36. Q. While their raft was moored at the Atchafalaya who passed them during the night in a boat going north? A. Gabriel.
37. Q. At a settlement on the banks of the Têche what Acadian did they find? A. Basil the blacksmith, now a herdsman.
38. Q. What did Basil report as to Gabriel? A. That he had that day started for “the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards,” and thence he would follow “the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,” hunting and trapping.
39. Q. The next morning who started to attempt to overtake Gabriel? A. Basil and Evangeline.
40. Q. When they arrived at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes what were they told by the landlord? A. “That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions, Gabriel left the village and took the road of the prairies.”
41. Q. At a Jesuit mission in the region of the Ozark Mountains, what did the priest inform them of Gabriel? A. That “not six suns” had “risen and set since Gabriel” had told him the same story, and then had continued his journey to the far north.
42. Q. What did Basil and Evangeline now do? A. Basil returned to his home, and Evangeline remained at the mission.
43. Q. While at the mission, where did Evangeline next hear that Gabriel was? A. In the Michigan forests by the banks of the Saginaw River.
44. Q. When she reached this place of his lodge, what did she find? A. “The hunter’s lodge deserted and fallen to ruin.”
45. Q. Where had Evangeline landed when she came from Acadia? A. At Philadelphia.
46. Q. Who among those mentioned in the story had died there? A. René Leblanc, the notary.
47. Q. After Evangeline had given up finding Gabriel, to what place did she go? A. To Philadelphia.
48. Q. In what way did she employ her time? A. In administering to the sick and distressed as a Sister of Mercy.
49. Q. In the year 1793 what terrible pestilence was in Philadelphia? A. The yellow fever.
50. Q. Where did Evangeline at length find Gabriel? A. In the Friends’ alms-house as he was dying from the fever.
C. L. S. C. ROUND-TABLE.[I]
Dr. Vincent: All interrogations are in order in the way of criticism, questions relating to blunders in speech overheard, to infelicities on the platform, provincialisms, or to any imperfections of speech, which we desire in the interest of the English language and of a true culture to correct.
I receive a great many very sensible letters from members of the Circle. I received one during the summer or spring, to which I call your attention. I will read it. We have not been able to carry out the idea here, but at some time I trust will do so:
“Dear Sir:—At Chautauqua last summer I remember Miss Washburn referred to some of the practical scientific work they accomplished at their California Assembly; and you expressed a wish to bring more of this work into the Round-Table meeting. I have thought of the matter often, and several plans presented themselves. The chapters we had on geology in The Chautauquan suggested an idea to me that might be carried out with little trouble. In some of the local circles there are many who are able to classify and give interesting particulars of the rocks they may pick up by the wayside, but many are not so fortunate. I doubt not those few chapters in geology led more than one to say, ‘I wish I could classify this and this fragment of rock.’ I do not mean rare and curious specimens, but that rough and bare rock by the roadside. Many of the C. L. S. C. members who will be at Chautauqua, must be familiar with these things, and many will be ignorant. It seems to me it would be very profitable for those who are ignorant, and not wholly unprofitable for the enlightened ones, if we could have some rudimentary work in reading sermons in stones.”
The letter closes:
“If those who are qualified should be too modest to volunteer in sufficient numbers, you would undoubtedly be enabled to select proper ones to supply the deficiency. Enough specimens, probably, might be picked up. I was talking to some of the C. L. S. C. friends who thought they would take a basketful of stones. I have hesitated about writing, but your note of May 15, acknowledging the former letter, encourages me that you will not think this an intrusion.”
It is a very happy, practical letter, and it was in pursuance of the suggestions made in that letter that Colonel Daniels was invited to take the class which he organized in geology. I have no doubt that many of you who attended several sessions of this class in geology found great benefit, and you have seen how the same kind of work may be continued on a smaller scale at home. If you have any thoughts in that direction, I shall be very grateful if you will write them to me. I hope to do something a little more thorough next year. We have in the history of Chautauqua had Prof. Winchell, and Prof. Rice, of Middletown, for very able lectures on geology. We shall do something in this line in the future. I read the letter because it was practical, just such as I like to receive.
A voice: How would it do for all of us to send on forty to fifty pounds of geological specimens to the museum from the various localities?
Dr. Vincent: Express prepaid. It might be well to write in advance to let us know the localities you represent, so that certain portions of Ohio, where the C. L. S. C. furore prevails, may not send several tons from the same neighborhood. [Applause.]
A voice: A lady here proposes to send specimens from Colorado.
Dr. Vincent: We should be very glad of them. There is no reason why, with our large organization through the world, we should not have at Chautauqua one of the best geological museums in the country.
A correspondent, a lady, writes from Colorado: “I think a knowledge of hygiene and medicine very essential to house-keepers, but it is one very little understood in the majority of households. I wish to offer the suggestion that a course should be founded in connection with the C. L. S. C. I can not go away from my home and spend time and money to take the course, but would be glad to take it up in the C. L. S. C., if offered.”
Dr. Vincent: Why may we not have a department, in which mothers and house-keepers might be interested; a department which would collect the various suggestions and devices for promoting house-keeping, that we may have the “house beautiful” in every home. Wealth is not necessary to such a result. Some of the most doleful places that I visit are the richest homes, where they have bare walls, or poor pictures on them, and carpets selected in the worst taste, and furniture that cost enough, to be sure, but was not selected wisely. When I go into a house, though it have very low ceilings, very small windows, and is very old-fashioned—built years ago, and though the people who built it did not have very much to build with—when I look at a house like that, and see on the walls pictures, selected for their real artistic value, even though inexpensive; when I see flowers and vines growing about; when I see the Atlantic, or Harper’s, or the Century on the table—and a few well-chosen books on the shelves—when I get into a house of that kind, my heart always warms toward the people who live there. We might have delightful homes all over the land. Brick and boards, lath and plaster do not make homes. It is not the large, costly house, I commend, but the house, little or large, cheap or costly, with evidences of taste here and there. Do you know that the first movement of true taste in many a house would not be the putting in of new pictures so much as the taking out of the old. (Laughter.)
Mr. Martin: Are the “Hall in the Grove” and the “Outline Study of Man” absolutely required for ’83?
Dr. Vincent: We put them on the list, but when asked if it were absolutely necessary to read them I said “No.”
Mr. Martin: I think that the memoranda will show that at least ninety per cent. of the class of ’82 have read it.
Dr. Vincent: I am glad to hear it; but you remember when an objection was made two years ago to the “requiring” of a local, modern book like the “Hall in the Grove,” I said in a general way we did not require it, but we preferred it. I will tell you why the “Hall in the Grove” was written. It is my old story of the esprit du corps. The college provides for this by its surroundings—the old buildings, the old elms, the old campus, the class songs, the memorial days, the pleasant memories, the struggles and rivalries in recitation, the sports, the diploma, the honor, the prestige in the world outside, the relative standing of “our” college and the other colleges. All these things create in the student the esprit du corps which makes him glad to say, “I belong to this or that college.” See the working of this spirit in a college boat-race. Take these old dignified and pious editors of religious papers, who have not been in a boat, unless to cross to Europe, for twenty-five years. Let old Wesleyan row with Cornell, and Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, you will find the old Baptist editor, or the old Methodist editor, who opposes all that sort of thing, close up an editorial on the modern follies in college, “Nevertheless, we were somewhat glad when we read that Wesleyan stood so well in that race.” [Laughter.] That is the spirit which characterizes the college life. There is educating power in it. It is a good thing for a boy to have it, and for a man to keep it. Now, we of the C. L. S. C can have nothing of this kind unless we construct it or grow it in our own way. So we have “Our Hall”—the Hall of Philosophy. Look at it by moon-light, or in the morning, or with its eager crowds at the vesper hour. The other evening a lady said, “There is something very fascinating about this Hall.” Then here are our St. Paul’s Grove; our path-way from the gate to the steps. Do you remember on Commencement Day the flowers strewn by those little darlings, who only knew that they were doing a beautiful thing, and did not see how far down it went into your hearts? Then there are our Athenian Watch-fires and our songs that excel for poetry and inspiration all the songs that were ever written for any educational society on earth (I am proud of our Chautauqua songs and our Chautauqua poetess, Miss Lathbury),—all these things help to create the spirit of Chautauqua. Pansy has given in her “Four Girls at Chautauqua,” and especially in the story of “The Hall in the Grove,” a true interpretation of Chautauqua and in a delightful way has shown the effects of the movement on society. All these things tend to give an esprit du corps to the C. L. S. C., and when you carry your diploma and remember your march from gate to goal the other day, you say, “I was present at the graduation of the class of ’82, and I shall go there as often as I can.” What the vision and the experience do for us who come here “The Hall in the Grove” will to some extent do for those who can not come. This enthusiasm will do for our members what the similar element in four years of college discipline and experience do for college students. And that is why I said let us have “The Hall in the Grove” written, so that people who never come to Chautauqua shall feel that they are one of us, that they really seem to have been there.
Questions concerning pronunciation of words were then taken up. The words “wiseacre,” “housewife,” “area-r” (a New England mispronunciation), “septuagint,” “Charlotte Yonge,” “khedive,” “Chautauqua,” “Celtic,” “truths,” were considered. The differences of opinion expressed justify our readers in consulting Webster or Worcester.
Dr. Vincent: I hope the Class of ’83 will be here to-night, according to the program, at nine o’clock for the Class Vigil. I am very anxious to see every member of that class. The Class of ’84 will please meet here when this service closes.
Written question: Where is volume four of the “History in Literature?”
Dr. Vincent: That work on English Literature (Chautauqua Library) was commenced by an accomplished lady who has been ill ever since she wrote the first volume.
Written question: Are we to use the same text-book on Greece as the first year?
Dr. Vincent: We are.
Written question: What is the Bryant Bell? Did Bryant give it?
Dr. Vincent: He did not. We gave that name to the bell we purchased. We own only one bell. The other bells are furnished by the house of “Clinton H. Meneely Bell Company,” of Troy, N. Y.
Written question: Will reading the White Seal Course for the last two years give us the white seal?Dr. Vincent: Yes, sir.
I will now proceed to state the objects of the S. H. G. “The Society of the Hall in the Grove” has for its object the improvement of the graduates of the C. L. S. C. in all things that tend to true life, physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual; the permanence of the Chautauqua Idea and spirit, the keeping of the place, and the protection of the articles which have acquired a peculiar sacredness to all C. L. S. C. Chautauquans. In furtherance of these objects the Society of the Hall in the Grove shall select an executive committee of twenty-five members, whose business it shall be to appoint the working committees for each year. And each year all the members who are elected in 1882 shall constitute the nucleus or foundation of that committee. For example, if you elect twenty-five ladies and gentlemen this year, and next year ten of them are absent, the fifteen who are present make the nucleus of that executive committee. In that way we shall keep up a permanent element. It will be your duty to elect twenty-five members. The “Messenger of the Hall,” appointed by the Superintendent of Instruction, shall be chairman of that executive committee. We hope to retain this Messenger for years. The committee shall be elected in 1882. Then there ought to be several special committees. We had some annoyance on Saturday. That banner was left standing in the Amphitheater. It is a banner that no money could buy. It might be easily mutilated. We need a committee to protect that banner from one end of the year to the other. We need also a permanent “Guard of the Gate.” It is only a conceit, and some people may think it is ridiculous, but we do not mind that. It is a pleasant conceit that no one pass under that arch who has not a right to pass under it. It is the business of the Guard to carry out this law. We had the gate photographed to-day, but the gate was opened, and opened by the Guard. There should be a committee on correspondence. You see we have quite an amount of work to do as a “Society of the Hall in the Grove.” I make these announcements so that you all who are interested may know, and that we may become a formal “order” and duly elect our committees.
[EDWIN AND CHARLES LANDSEER.]
The writer of an obituary of Charles Landseer, who died in July, 1879, records an interesting incident connected with that artist’s picture, “The Eve of the Battle of Edgehill.” This, perhaps his best work, was painted in 1845. When it was nearly finished, Edwin Landseer was asked by Charles to come and look at it; and remarking that it was a very good picture, but “How nice a spaniel would look in that corner!” Charles said, “Will you put it in, then?” At which the master took up the brush, and at once painted in a fine old English spaniel with some leather dispatch-bags lying on the ground by him. The picture was duly exhibited and admired, the spaniel especially; but the dealer who bought it, being a simple man of business, bethought him that Sir Edwin’s dog would be worth more than the whole picture. So he coolly cut it out and sold it, filling the place by a common dog copied from it. Several years afterwards the owner of the picture showed Sir Edwin, with some pride, the picture in which he had painted the dog; but the great master declared “he’d be hanged if ever he did that dog.” The picture was examined more closely, and then the trick was found out. The identical picture, as cut out and put on another canvas, was sold shortly before Charles Landseer’s death at Christie’s, in the collection of the late Mr. White, for the sum of £43!
[THE SONNET.]
By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels:
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth, the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to me,
In sundry moods ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.
[A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD.]
By Mrs. JOSEPH COOK.
Two months have passed since the journeyings of the Chautauqua quartette were interrupted by the illness of their beloved commander-in-chief, and now, under new leadership, they are about to resume their travels with the “limited time” for which American tourists are famous. Much must be omitted which was in the original program, and piteous are the groans of these disappointed Chautauquans, as one after another of their anticipated delights is ruled out of the new plan. “We can not go to Germany!” “Can not go to Germany!” exclaim the four as with one voice. And then one by one they utter their separate laments. “Not see the Sistine Madonna!” “Nor the Rhine!” “Nor Rauch’s lovely marble of Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg!” “Nor Heidelberg Castle!” “I feel for you from my heart,” says the leader, “but let me beg of you to reserve some of your emotion, for I have other disappointments in store for you. It is quite likely that you will visit the continent of Europe again, but this may be our only opportunity to go around the world. We do not want to make the circuit of the globe after the fashion of Jules Verne. Be prepared for another shock. We can not stop in Switzerland!” The faces of the quartette grew positively pale at this announcement. There were tears in the eyes of the æsthetic member, who had been improving the two months’ delay in practising sketching from nature, and confused murmurs of “Interlaken—Chamounix—the ascent of the Rigi—Lucerne and Thorwaldsen’s lion—the Lake of Geneva, and the Castle of Chillon—alas! alas!” came from the party.
“Let me tell you our best plan,” said the leader, who felt herself in an awkward position in thus coming in to take the place of another, and obliged at the outset to insist upon slaying the cherished hopes of the Chautauqua quartette. “I am sure none of you want to visit any of these famous places simply to say that you have been there, or to ‘see all that you can in five minutes,’ like the over-hurried traveler Howells describes in his ‘Venetian Journeys.’ We must reach Italy by the shortest possible route. We can not stop there half as long as we shall desire. Rome is inexhaustible, and we want to see the Pyramids and be ready next month to set sail from Suez for India.” The gloomy shadows which had fallen on the faces of the eager Chautauquans lifted a little at the mention of Rome and the Pyramids, and a sweet reasonableness began to take possession of them. The leader continued: “We leave Paris at nine o’clock this evening, and in twenty-four hours we shall be in Turin. We shall cross the Alps by the Mont Cenis tunnel, and you will have a glimpse of Switzerland, and be in the midst of grand mountain scenery all day to-morrow. When we reach Turin we will decide which route we will take to Rome, for the City of the Seven Hills must be our chief objective point.”
Packing to resume the journey was now the business of the day. Our practical member made all necessary arrangements for us. She visited the Gare de Lyons that afternoon and had our tickets visèd, for we had been assured that, disagreeable as it might be to join a superintended party which moves according to an inexorable plan, it would save us some annoyance to buy the tickets issued by any of the responsible tourist organizations and then there would be no awkward mistakes at small railway stations, where only Italian was spoken, and we found that this arrangement worked admirably. Our energetic little woman of business, with her imperturbable good nature and winning smile, which always melted the hearts of stern railway officials, came back to the pension with the assurance that everything was satisfactorily arranged, and by judiciously feeing the guard we should be able to secure a railway carriage to ourselves.
Twenty-four hours of railway travel and we reach Turin, fatigued enough for a good night’s rest at the Hotel Trombetta. We make an early visit the next morning to the Royal Palace, the residence of Victor Emmanuel, while Turin was the capital of Italy, which position she held from 1859 until 1865. The palace has the plainest possible exterior, but the long suites of apartments are fitted up in a lavish manner, and these rooms are reached by a magnificent marble stair-case. Glass chandeliers, gilded and frescoed ceilings, beautifully polished floors of inlaid woods, were the main characteristics of the rooms. A marble bust of the wife of Victor Emmanuel showed a sweet, womanly face, with a queenly pose of the head. Here were many interesting portraits and miniatures of the house of Savoy—among others one of the Princess de Lamballe, who suffered such cruel indignities from the Paris mob for being the friend of Marie Antoinette. Powdered hair, rolled back from the forehead with a long curl each side of the neck, gentle brown eyes and a refined face, with a touch of sadness in it, which seemed to forebode her fate, made up the picture.
In our drive about the city we talk over our future route. “There are two ways to Rome,” says the leader, “and we should not long hesitate which of them to take if it were not for this serious embarrassment in respect to time. Our inclinations point to Milan, Venice and Florence, but it is not safe to trust ourselves in those alluring places, so we will proceed to-morrow to Genoa, and thence to Pisa, and so on to Rome.” The Chautauquans are becoming philosophic. “The Continent of Europe another time!” saves them from despair under these repeated disappointments.
Genoa, with its memories of Christopher Columbus, is not a very attractive place except for those who have a fondness for silver filigree jewelry. Our few hours here gave us opportunity to visit several gaudily decorated churches; to see the exteriors of palaces, cold and cheerless-looking under a gray sky, though warmth and sunlight might have made the courts pleasant, in which we caught glimpses of fountains, statuary and colonnades. In the Andrea Doria palace we saw a portrait of the old admiral with his favorite cat, but most of the rooms were desolate and unadorned.
The journey from Genoa to Pisa is a succession of tunnels, eighty in all, many of them of considerable length, so that it seemed as though we were traveling by night instead of day. The views of the Mediterranean were aggravatingly beautiful as we emerged from the tunnels, but we had only time to exclaim and spring forward toward the window when our enthusiasm would receive a sudden check as we plunged into darkness again. Now and then our unobstructed vision permitted us to see these bold promontories, through which our course lay, bordering the coast and pushing their sharp tusks into the sea. At Massa the Marble Mountains, rivalling those of Carrara, contrasted finely with nearer green slopes.
The objects of chief interest at Pisa center in one square. Here are the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery and the Campo Santo. These beautiful buildings, from four to six hundred years old, have been wonderfully preserved from the ravaging tooth of time. The interior of the Cathedral is a basilica with nave, double aisles and elliptical dome over the center. Its sixty-eight columns are ancient Roman and Greek, and were captured by the Pisans in war. The flat ceiling of the nave, though richly gilded, marred the beauty of the otherwise noble interior, but the aisles were vaulted. The swaying of the bronze lamp which hangs in the nave is said to have suggested to Galileo the idea of the pendulum.
A burial place in Italy, called a Campo Santo, is arranged in the form of a square with covered arcades like the cloisters of a cathedral, and a sunny, open central space. The one at Pisa is particularly sacred because the earth in the open court was brought from Jerusalem. We wandered through these aisles filled with mortuary marbles and tablets enjoying the reflection of the sunlight falling through the beautiful tracing of the open, round-arched windows. The frescoes by Orcagna representing Death and the Last Judgment, were fascinating from their horrible realistic treatment. The Baptistery, a circular, dome-crowned building, is a perfect gem inside and out, exquisitely finished as an ivory toy. There is a wonderful echo here which comes floating down from the dome like music from an angelic choir. Two hundred and ninety-four steps lead to the top of the famous Leaning Tower, and one is repaid for the ascent by a wide outlook on the Apennines; the city itself through which the Arno winds; the cluster of fine buildings at the base, and the flashing Mediterranean six miles distant. And so, closing our eyes repeatedly to see if we could reproduce in mental vision the picture before us, we bade farewell to Pisa and are next to be found at Rome.
In order to begin acquaintance with a new city, it is a good plan to take at the outset what the guide books call an “orientation drive,” obtaining in this way a general idea of the topography of the city, a first vivid glance at the buildings, monuments, and ruins, closing the drive with an outlook over the city from some commanding height. Starting from the head of the Corso, the principal business street of Rome, we paused at the column of Marcus Aurelius, then on to the Piazza Venezia and Trajan’s Forum. At the Roman Forum the nineteenth century grows dim as the imagination calls up the orators, senators, warriors, and famous men of old Rome, who once paced among these gray, broken pillars. Jerusalem and her woes come before us as we reach the Arch of Titus, and see in bas-relief the pictured story of the capture of the golden candlestick, the sacred vessels, and the treasures of the Temple. To this day pious Jews will not pass under this arch. It is but a step from here to the Colosseum, where again we are reminded of the overthrow of the Holy City, for this huge amphitheater was built by the enforced labor of sixty thousand captive Jews. The best piece of descriptive literature to read here is found in Richter’s Titan. Past St. John Lateran and S. Maria Maggiore, we drive down the Via Nazionale, a broad, new street lined with stately marble buildings, called palaces, in one of which we find most agreeable and healthy quarters during our stay in Rome. Arriving in front of St. Peter’s, we can not resist the temptation of entering for a moment. The fountains were shot through by the brilliant mid-day sunlight as we walked up the magnificent piazza to the largest and most imposing, if not the most beautiful, cathedral in the world. One who regards Gothic architecture as the best expression in stone of religious aspiration, is not likely to be enthusiastic over St. Peter’s. The proportions are so harmonious that the vastness of the interior fails to impress the new comer. It is only by repeated visits, and by studying St. Peter’s in sections, that one appreciates the size, and comes to discover that modern places of worship could easily find room in a single arm of this gigantic cross. Colored glass, instead of these barn-like windows, would be an improvement, although the broad shafts of white light falling across the high altar made a fine effect. Priests in black, priests in white, and rope-girdled monks move noiselessly about. They kneel in the various chapels: they kiss the well-worn, extended foot of the bronze statue of St. Peter, and descend to the shrine where, according to Church tradition, the apostle is actually buried.
Leaving the cathedral, we drive up a pleasant, winding road, past terraces of century plants and curious cacti, to S. Pietro, in Montorio, where from the piazza we obtain such an outlook as would be hard to surpass, embracing the tremendous sweep from St. Peter’s dome to the flats of the Campagna. All Rome is at our feet. The Apennines from Soracte to the Alban Mount are bathed in sunlight, shadow and shower. Historic villages lie along the slopes, nestling in the valleys, and crowning the hill-tops. The giants of the past move through the spiritual sky and hover over this ancient city where they lived, and suffered, and died. The view from the terrace of the Pincian is justly celebrated, but it does not equal the outlook from this height.
If one desires to use his time in Rome to the best advantage let him have nothing to do with half-educated guides, whose information is often untrustworthy. There are promenade lectures given by well-informed English archæologists, who have spent years in Rome, making a special study of the ruins and modern excavations. The Chautauqua quartette were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. S. Russell Forbes, whose recent book, entitled “Rambles in Rome,” gains for him the gratitude of all those who have felt the need of just such a printed guide. Our first morning was spent at the Roman Forum and Colosseum, under Mr. Forbes’s delightful leadership. Starting from the temple of Castor and Pollux we went over the whole ground of the Forum, pausing before the mound which covers the ashes of the great Cæsar, seeing the rostrum from which Mark Antony made his funeral oration, and also the rostrum where Cicero delivered his famous speeches, and on which, after his assassination, his head and hands were nailed, “that everybody might see them in the very place where he had formerly harangued with so much vehemence.” We walked over the identical pavement used in the days when Rome was mistress of the world, and saw ruts in the stone made by chariot wheels, when England was but a barbarous isle. The Flavian Amphitheater, known to us as the Colosseum, received this name from the colossal statue of Nero, that stood near, and it was first spoken of in this way by Venerable Bede, of England. Byron is responsible for the mis-spelling of the word, which he writes Coliseum. Mr. Forbes thinks there is no evidence that Christians suffered in this arena, with the exception of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. The cross which formerly stood in the center is now removed, and the excavations have revealed three parallel curving walls, which were put up by the Emperor Commodus, who boasted that he could kill an hundred lions with as many javelins. Standing in safety on one of these high walls the beasts were led out to meet the cruel, murderous spears cast at them with unerring aim by this brutal emperor. From the upper gallery one can look down on what Richter calls “the crater of this burnt out volcano” and imagine the vast Amphitheater in the year of its dedication, A. D. 80, when the games continued for one hundred days, and 5,000 beasts were slain, while from 80,000 to 100,000 spectators crowded these now deserted spaces. Visiting the Colosseum by moonlight a solemn hush broods over the place where was once such abounding, riotous life, the roar of wounded and infuriated wild beasts, mingling with the death-groans of gladiators and martyrs. The silence is broken by the musical monotone of a tolling church bell, suggesting the new light which had just risen on the world when this amphitheater was in process of construction, and which has been the chief force in extinguishing the desire for such brutal and bestial exhibitions.
It is a brilliantly blue morning and the Chautauquans are in high spirits, for at 10 o’clock they are to start in open carriages, with Mr. Forbes as guide, for the Appian Way and the Catacombs. They first visit the baths of Caracalla, which even in ruins give one some conception of the magnificence of Rome under the Empire. These sunken mosaic pavements are still beautiful, the vacant niches suggest the fine works of art that once adorned them, and the grass-grown arches and walls, over which rooks and jackdaws now fly, speak of the gay life that once assembled here. It was a vast structure covering a mile square, and accommodating 1,600 bathers at once. Here were not only every conceivable kind of bath known to us moderns, but rooms for games, reading and conversation, each of these most elegantly fitted up, and on top of all were the gardens. It was a place of fashionable resort, where the pleasure-loving Romans could spend their days. Built by the emperor, it was then thrown open free to all, in order to curry favor with the people.
The Appian Way is lined with temples, villas and tombs. As it was against the law to bury inside the walls, the ancient Romans were accustomed to place their dead on either side of the principal roads leading from the city. At the despoiled tomb of the Scipios we each of us took a lighted candle and went down into gloomy, subterranean passages, to see the niches which once held the sarcophagi of Scipio Barbatus, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and other distinguished members of the Scipio family.—
“The Scipios’ tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchers lie tenantless
Of their heroic dwellers.”
The treasures of this tomb have been carried to the Vatican Museum.
At the Columbaria we walked through blossoming hedges of pink roses to the great sepulchers for those whose bodies were burned as was customary during the first centuries of the Christian era, although even then the distinguished Patrician families followed the ancient mode of interment. This early cremation did not consume the body to powder as in our days, but the bones were left and gathered into an urn. These funeral vases were placed in little niches, resembling the nests in a modern pigeon-house, and therefore called Columbaria. Here were placed the remains of the officers of Cæsar’s household—we read one inscription to the barber of the mighty Julius, and other names are familiar from St. Paul’s letters. Tryphena, Tryphosa, Onesimus—are these the funeral urns of the persons mentioned by the apostle? So our learned guide was inclined to think, and we were well pleased to believe it possible.
The Catacombs of St. Callixtus was our next stopping place, and here again we each received a lighted taper, and forming a procession descended out of the gladsome light of day into the gloomy bowels of the earth—the burial place, and, as many think, the hiding place of the first converts to Christianity. We wind in and out a mazy labyrinth, excavations on either side of us in the soft greenish brown tufa for graves, one above another, and of irregular size. Many of these graves were rifled by barbarians for the treasure supposed to be contained therein. The sarcophagi and slabs have been carried to museums, especially to the Lateran, where, on another occasion, we studied the touching inscriptions, some of which were evidently wrought by affection and not by skilled workmen. Some frescoes remain in the Catacombs which are interesting from their very rudeness, showing that the Christians would not employ pagan art for their sacred places. Coming to the Chapel of the Bishops, we see engraved in beautiful characters this inscription, put up by Pope Damasus: “Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a number of the holy. These honored sepulchers enclose the bodies of the saints, their lofty souls the palace of heaven has received. . . . Here lie youths and boys, old men and their chaste descendants, who kept their virginity undefiled. Here I, Damasus, wished to have laid my limbs, but feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.” From the chapel a gallery leads to the Crypt of St. Cecilia. When Paschal I. had the body of this martyred virgin removed in 820, it was found “fresh and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen cloths, stained with blood, rolled up at her feet.” Although there are shafts for ventilation and light, how good it seemed to reach once more the upper air and the flood of sunlight, and to see the blue sky and green earth!
On our way to the Three Taverns we pass the tomb of Seneca, the tombs of the Horatii and the Curatii, and the circular tomb of Cecilia Metella, on which Paul himself must have looked. We drive under the Arch of Drusus, which spanned the road in the apostle’s day, and so came to the Three Taverns, where the brethren met Paul, “whom, when he saw, he thanked God and took courage.” Crimson-tipped daisies were blossoming on the site of this famous meeting-place; the afternoon sun was shining on the Sabine hills and Alban Mount, and a happy lark, thinking the spring had come in this soft air, warbled to us his divine melody as our thought took flight across the centuries to that day when the apostle to the Gentiles paused here on his way to imperial Rome, where he lost his earthly life, but the message that he brought conquered Cæsar, and will yet conquer the world.
The festival of All Saints Day came while we were in Rome, and we found shops and museums more generally closed than on the Christian Sabbath. Driving to the Capitoline Museum, with Merivale and Suetonius to read in presence of the portrait busts of the Roman emperors, we found the doors closed on account of the festa, and when we reached St. Luke’s Academy there was no admission; so we concluded to go with the crowd, and in the dark, dull and dismal November afternoon we drove to the Campo Verano, one of the largest cemeteries of Rome. This is the day that the rich and poor visit their dead, carrying flowers to decorate the graves. For a mile or more the road was lined with young men and maidens, old men and children of the middle and poorer classes, who were walking to the cemetery, carrying wreaths, while the occupants of elegant private carriages were almost invisible under heaps of choice flowers. We made slow progress, as the street was blocked with vehicles and pedestrians, all moving in one direction, while vociferous beggars, halt, lame, and blind, stretched out their hands, crying lustily for charity. The walls along the way were covered with wreaths of natural and artificial flowers, with bead wreaths and wreaths of immortelles for sale to those who had failed to supply themselves at the outset of their journey. Leaving our cab at the cemetery gates, we walked through the covered Campo Santo, in which were many elaborate monuments, and on most of these there was some likeness of the deceased, either a portrait in oil, or a bust, or bas-relief in marble. A life-size sitting figure of a young mother holding her little son in her arms, who was reaching up to kiss her, was the work of a distinguished Milanese sculptor in memory of his lost wife and child, and these were both portraits. Another very touching representation was of a lovely young woman lying dead on a funeral bier, while her little child was standing at one side on tip-toe, pulling the drapery of the couch, as if trying to wake the sleeper. The graves of the poor were simply marked by a black cross, on which was a number, instead of a name, but even over these graves a burning lamp was suspended. In the funeral chapel we heard the distant chanting of invisible monks.
Excursions to Tivoli and to the Alban Mount; sunny afternoons in the ornamental gardens and park-like enclosures of the villas Borghese and Albani; drives to the Pincian, where there is music and a gay moving throng of vehicles and pedestrians; study of ancient art at the Capitoline Museum and the Vatican; repeated visits to the Sistine Chapel, where one comes under the spell of Michael Angelo’s mighty genius; a day’s wandering over the ruined palaces of the Cæsars on Palatine Hill; a search for the masterpieces of art in churches and palaces; diligent reading during the evenings of Merivale and Suetonius, Grimm’s “Michael Angelo” and Hare’s “Walks,” a re-reading of Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun,” and a dozen lessons in Italian—such were the absorbing and delightful occupations of the Chautauquans during their stay in Rome. And now it was time to start for Naples, in order to catch the next steamer to Alexandria. The statues on St. John Lateran stood out against the blue sky as we moved out of Rome. The desolate Campagna; the long, solemn stretch of aqueduct arches; the tombs on the Appian Way; the sun sinking as a ball of fire; the dome of St. Peter’s, visible long after the city had been blotted out—these were our last views of the Eternal City. We arrive in Naples at 11 o’clock, but there is delay about luggage, and it is midnight when we reach the Hotel Royal des Etrangers, after a long rattling drive from the railway station. Stepping out on the balcony, under the clear star-lit heavens, we see the matchless curve of the Bay of Naples, and Vesuvius sending its dull, red glare into the holy night. The next morning we take an early train to Pompeii, and on the journey read Pliny’s description of the three days of horror in the year 79, when the great eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is a short walk from the station to the gates of the ruined town, and after escaping from the importunate beggars, the desolation of these deserted streets is all the more impressive. Everything seems on a diminutive scale here—the streets narrow, houses small, and the sleeping apartments no larger than those on an ocean steamer. The people spent most of their time in the open courts, which were surrounded by covered arcades and were a necessary part of every dwelling. Comparatively few of the adornments of these Pompeiian homes remain in situ, the choicest specimens of art found here have been carried off to the museums. A fountain in the court, a mutilated statue, a broken pillar, a bit of mosaic pavement, a partially obliterated fresco-painting are all that remain to tell of the beauty of the city so suddenly buried, with 2,000 of its inhabitants, under twenty feet of ashes and lava. One of the most interesting spots was where the Roman soldier was discovered, grasping his spear and remaining faithful to his post, although he might well have supposed that the last great day had come. In the museum at Pompeii the most striking and interesting objects are casts of eight human corpses, and one of the body of a dog, fearfully twisted and contorted in the final death agony. The casts were obtained in 1863, by an ingenious experiment made by Signor Fiorelli, the present director of the excavations. While the soft parts of the bodies had decayed, their forms frequently remained imprinted on the ashes, which afterward hardened. The bones of a body thus imbedded were carefully removed and the cavity filled with plaster, and thus the figures and attitudes of the poor creatures in the death struggle have been preserved.
On the third day after our arrival in Naples we set sail for Alexandria. The soft, bright skies of Southern Italy smile on us as we stand on the rear deck of the French steamer “Mendoza,” looking back at Naples as we slowly move down the bay, Vesuvius every now and then sending out a solemn, thunderous boom. We read with delight and amazement Richter’s marvelous word paintings in “Titan” of places which he never saw but with the mind’s eye. We sail out of the two encircling arms which are thrust into the blue waters, Ischia and Pozzuoli, the modern name for Puteoli, on the one side, Castellamare and Sorrento on the other. The rocky island of Capri is passed; we peer along the shore of the Gulf of Salerno hoping to get a glimpse of Pæstum and its famous temple, and on we go, the white gulls following us into the open sea.
As a preparation for Alexandria we read Ebers’s “Egyptian Princess,” and like true Chautauquans re-read Charles Kingsley’s “Hypatia.” We are so unfortunate as to arrive at the end of our voyage just after dusk, and although the lights of the city are in view, we are forced to cast anchor and remain on shipboard another night. As the twilight falls upon us, the great spirits of the past begin to loom up in the sky—the Cæsars and Ptolemies; Pompey and Antony’s fascinator, Cleopatra; Euclid and Theocritus; Cyril and Apollos; the early Christian Church struggling with Greek learning and Jewish prejudice. Such is the atmosphere of the early ages of this ancient city. Under the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, Alexandria was a world-renowned city of 500,000 souls, adorned with the arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt, while its schools of learning far outshone all those of the more ancient cities. At the beginning of the third century it began to wane and from the time it was taken by Omar in A. D. 641, its commerce and importance sunk rapidly. The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope completed its ruin.
Anchoring outside the quay we were quickly surrounded by a crowd of row-boats, with black-faced sailors in a picturesque costume of white full trowsers, with red jackets and sashes, and red and white turbans. These boats brought to our ship several visitors, who came to meet their friends, and it was amusing to see the Oriental salutations and effusiveness. In our drive of two hours, strange sights met us at every turn, and the street scenes were most curious and interesting. The veiled women, with their black, flashing, restless eyes; their flowing robes of black or blue or white, and their stately gait, made one long to see their entire countenance and to know what is their manner of life. There is every variety of color here, from the intense black of the Nubian to the delicate yellow tinge of the Octoroon. Some of the children’s faces were attractive, but most of the old faces were so haggard and evil that it was painful to catch a glimpse of them. Groves of the date palm, the luscious, freshly-picked fruit of which seemed to us far more tempting than the leeks and onions after which the children of Israel lusted; donkeys, carrying their riders far back on their haunches, and pursued by runners who give the poor animal a shove when he slackens speed; camels, with their slow gait and quizzical expression, as much as to say, “Don’t you think I’m handsome? Isn’t life a great joke?”; merchants, sitting calmly in their booths, smoking their nargilehs with the utmost unconcern as to custom—these were a few of a multitude of objects new and striking that attracted our attention.
Pompey’s Pillar is a solid shaft of polished red syenite, which resembles Scotch granite, and placed on an eminence lifts itself grandly against the deep blue of the sky. But it was erected in Diocletian’s time, and that seems quite modern here. The Pasha’s palace and harem are of stucco, and far from being impressive or elegant. We drove through the grounds, which have a fountain in the center, a few sickly looking plants, and a fine view of the sea.
Shepheard’s hotel in Cairo has been for many years the favorite stopping place of English travelers, and one finds here a degree of comfort and cleanliness not often to be met in this part of the world. Here the English language is spoken by all the servants, and, although our method of summoning a waiter is unknown, the Oriental fashion of clapping the hands is quite as effective. Mounted on donkeys we rode to the museum at Boulak, where are to be found the best specimens of Egyptian ancient art. Massive and grand are some of these sitting figures of kings who reigned thousands of years ago. One, with the body of a sphinx, is said to represent the Pharaoh under whom Joseph attained power and position in Egypt. Exquisitely wrought and polished are these black granite statues, but there is no soul in the stone. The royal mummies recently found near Thebes are here, and we saw these hoar monarchs as they lay in their varnished and hieroglyph-inscribed coffins of sycamore wood, wrapped in the shrouds of fine linen in which their embalmers had enswathed them, wearing on their faces their sharp-cut and life-like effigies, encircled with the flowers and garlands which had been placed there by the hands of mourners over three thousand years ago. Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Bondage lay, holding in his right hand, appropriately and significantly, a scourge of four cords. He was the only one of the royal group who bore this emblem. Here, too, is Thothmes III., that Pharaoh who ordered the construction of the obelisks, one of which stands on the Thames embankment, and the other in our own New York. In another case lies the second king of the nineteenth dynasty, who occupied the throne during the grandest era of Egyptian history. He was the builder of the “Hall of Columns,” at Karnac, the most magnificent temple in all Egypt, and one of the ten or twelve architectural wonders of the world. It is a significant fact that Menephtâh, the son and successor of the Pharaoh of the Bondage, is not in the group. The question which naturally rises to the Biblical student is, “Are we to seek for him in the Red Sea?”
Starting one bright morning at 7 o’clock in an open barouche, with Jūseph Hakè as dragoman, a tall stately Egyptian as coachman, with the imperial buttons on his coat, for he was formerly in the service of Ismail Pasha, and an Arab runner to clear the passage through the narrow and crowded Cairo streets, we drove in the fresh morning air over the arched stone bridges of the Nile, with their bronze lions, the gift of France, and on smooth, straight avenues lined with lebeck trees, until we had accomplished the ten miles which lie between Cairo and the Pyramids. Barricades of corn-husks enclosing heaps of yellow corn, and the busy, dark-skinned huskers were a noticeable feature by the roadside. We could not look at a child without his little hand was extended with the call for backsheesh, and sometimes our carriage was followed by half a dozen girls and boys whose cries, when they got short of breath in running, would be simply “’sheesh, ’sheesh.” Our first view of the Pyramids of Gheezeh was over the lebeck trees and corn-husks, and they seemed close at hand, although then five miles away. Among the three pyramids of Gheezeh the pyramid of Cheops, or the “Great Pyramid,” is by far the most important. It is the pyramid as the mysterious Sphinx at its base is the sphinx. It is probably the oldest, and certainly the largest building in the world. Egyptologists differ widely in their chronology. Mariette puts the building of Cheops’s pyramid back to B. C. 4235, Brugsch to B. C. 3733, while Piazzi Smyth places it in the age of Abraham and Melchisedek, B. C. 2170.
As soon as we left our carriage we were approached by the sheik of the village and a dozen swarthy Arabs, who, with their usual vociferous volubility, tried to prove that we, each of us, needed three men to help us up the pyramid. One took hold of each hand, and the other pushed and lifted us on the highest stones of this rough staircase. Pausing frequently for breath, we consumed three-quarters of an hour in the ascent, but the summit reached, one speedily forgets the physical effort required in the grand, solemn, far-reaching prospect over green plain and sandy desert—the living and the dead. Far away on the horizon line of the desert appear the sharp outlines of ten or twelve pyramids. Near us is a pyramid almost as large as the one on which we stand, the smooth casing still remaining on the top, and making that portion of it inaccessible. Clearly defined is the line of verdure which marks the overflow of the river. From June to October this broad plain is inundated to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet. This remarkable rise of the Nile waters is occasioned by the tropical rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at the equator. The rise and the retreat are equally rapid. In May the volume of its waters is only one-twentieth of that in October. The eternal youth of Nature, “as fresh as on creation’s morn,” and the hoary past contrast here most vividly. Where are they who planned and reared these mighty monuments? Gone and forgotten as we too shall be. The Arabs sat by themselves and chattered in low tones when they saw we wanted to be alone, but now and then they would gather around us like children, asking in very good English all sorts of questions, some in regard to America, its extent, climate, the cost of getting there, and prices paid to a laboring man.
The dark, slippery, suffocating, steep slope which leads to the King’s Chamber is a much more trying journey than that to the summit, and yet one can hardly understand the Pyramids without exploring this interior room, which contains nothing but an empty stone sarcophagus. Over this rifled coffin we repeated that portion of the fifteenth of 1st Corinthians, which relates to the resurrection, while the four Arabs held the candles in perfect silence, and looked into our faces with a kind of wondering awe.
After a bountiful lunch in our carriage, we walked to the Sphinx, and saw that face, sadly mutilated now, but still with an expression of cheerful courage, which has looked across these dreary wastes under the midnights and the noons, while men have come and gone like shadows, and kingdoms have been born and fallen to decay. The body of the Sphinx is the natural rock, here and there adapted by a little carving, or the addition of masonry, and is one hundred and forty feet in length. The head is carved out of the solid rock, and measures thirty feet from brow to chin, and fourteen feet across. The Sphinx is merely a ruin of what he was when sacrifices were offered on the altar between his lion paws of fifty feet in length. And yet he makes an overpowering impression of majestic repose, and is worthy of the name given him by the Arabs—the Father of Terror, or Immensity.
[To be continued.]
[APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY.]
It is naturally impossible to give even an outline of all the many and varied applications to which photography can be and has been applied. In this article it is proposed to give a few of them, more for the sake of informing the student what has been done, than for teaching him the practical method of working them. The method of securing the automatic registration of barometers, thermometers, and magnetometers should command our attention first. It will be necessary to divide these into two classes which require different treatment. A mercurial thermometer may be taken as the representative of the first class.
Supposing we have a darkened chamber, in the side of which is a slit of just sufficient dimensions to allow the bore of the capillary tube to fill it, and that light can only have access to that chamber after passing through that slit when so closed, it is manifest that if a strip of sensitive paper be caused to pass gradually behind such a thermometer tube the different height of the mercury will be registered, owing to the opacity of that fluid to light. If the supply of paper be properly regulated it is also manifest that the height of the mercury at any particular instant will be known. Since daylight is not always available, resort must be had to artificial light to impress the sensitive paper, and a suitable process of development employed.
Such a method exists for registering the movements of this class of instruments, the details of apparatus and manipulation being altered to suit each individual case. There are, however, other instruments to which such would be totally inapplicable. As an example, we may take the magnetometer. The oscillations of the suspended magnet as used for measuring the horizontal or vertical components of the earth’s magnetism are very minute, so minute indeed that they can scarcely be perceived by the eye. If to one of these magnetometers, however, we attach a very small and light mirror, the plane of which is at right angles to the axis of the magnet, and cause a beam, proceeding from a source of light, to pass through a small aperture, thence to a fixed lens on to the mirror, which reflects the beam of light on to a screen so placed that the image of the aperture is in the focus of the lens, any small deviation of the magnetometer will cause the beam of light to deflect on the screen. The amount of the deflection will be dependent on the focal length of the lens, and the distance of the aperture and screen from the mirror. Suppose the screen to be opaque, and that a slit is cut in it in the direction that the deviation of the beam would take, and lying in the same plane as the deviation, and that a strip of sensitive paper moves behind that slit in a direction at right angles to its length, then at each instant the position of the beam of light will be registered on the paper. On developing the image we shall have a sinuous line corresponding to the deflections of the magnetometer at every time of day and night, the reading of the time being dependent on the rate at which the paper travels.
For meteorological purposes we may also hope that photography will be more utilized than it has hitherto been. Mr. A. Mallock, at the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth, has shown a way in which it may be made subservient to ascertaining the heights of clouds.
In military science it is only necessary to call to mind the service that the pigeon post performed during the siege of Paris. A large series of letters were printed on one sheet, and then photographed to a very small scale on collodion pellicle. Such pellicles, measuring about 6×2 centimeters, were tied to pigeons, which when liberated carried the dispatch to Paris, where they had been trained. On arrival the collodion pellicle was detached from the pigeon, placed in a lantern, and the letters transcribed and sent to the various addresses. Of so much use was this pigeon post that the German military authorities have established a regular service of pigeons in the chief fortresses of the empire, which would be used in case of investment or siege by a hostile army.
During the investigation of the action of torpedoes the use of photography was also largely brought into requisition by the writer in order to ascertain the work that was expended by different charges of gun cotton. The method adopted was roughly this: A mine having been laid down at a known depth and position in water, a scale was placed over it, and photographed from the position the camera was to occupy. On the explosion of the gun-cotton or powder an instantaneous exposure was given to a specially sensitive plate, and the height, breadth, and general form of the resulting column of water was obtained from the photograph after comparing it with the photographic scale.
At Shoeburyness, again, a regular staff of photographers is kept in order to photograph all the experimental work carried on by the artillery against iron shields, &c., and the series of such pictures has been able to convey more to the minds of committees than elaborate drawings could do.
We can not conclude these applications of photography without recalling the fact that it has proved exceedingly useful in the repression of crime. The portrait of every convict is taken by an authorized photographer in each convict establishment, and when necessity arises prints from such negatives are produced by the hundred and distributed, in order that the various police authorities may be enabled to identify a criminal who may have happened previously to be placed under their surveillance.
[DANIEL WEBSTER versus STEPHEN GIRARD.]
The true relation of Christianity to education has seldom, if ever but once, been before the Supreme Court of the United States for adjustment. That time was when Daniel Webster made his great argument to break the will by which Mr. Girard founded his college in Philadelphia. Mr. Webster rose to the demands of his opportunity, and made what was at once a masterly argument for his cause, and a splendid defense of Christian charity, Christianity, and the Christian ministry. In the following article we have abridged his speech, but we have tried to preserve the chain of his argument. It is wholesome reading from the mind of America’s greatest constitutional lawyer, in the times when rhetoricians hurl flippant statements against the bulwarks of divine truth, as though with these they would batter them down.
Two millions of dollars were bequeathed by Mr. Girard for the erection of a college; detailed plans were drawn specifying where, how, and for whom it was to be built. The validity of this will was contested by the heirs-at-law in 1836. In 1841 the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. In course of the argument, Daniel Webster made the speech of which we give a synopsis. We follow the argument, giving only brief quotations. Mr. Webster passes over the details of the will, taking up the following clause, or restriction, which Mr. Girard prescribed as among the conditions on which his bequest for the college was to be enjoyed.
These are the words: “I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or any minister of any sect whatever, shall ever hold or exercise any station whatever in the said college; or shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college. In making these restrictions I do not mean to cast any reflections upon any sect or person whatsoever; but, as there is such a diversity of opinion among them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans who are to derive advantage from this bequest free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce.” Upon these statements Mr. Webster argues: “The first question is whether this bequest can be sustained otherwise than as a charity. The bequest is void according to the general rules of the law, on account of the uncertainty in the description of those who are intended to receive its benefits, and must therefore stand, if it stand at all, on the peculiar rules which equitable jurisprudence applies to charities. This is clear. The question is whether in the eye of equitable jurisprudence the bequest be a charity at all. I deny that it is so. It is no charity; because the plan of education proposed by Mr. Girard is derogatory to the Christian religion, tends to weaken men’s reverence for that religion, and their conviction of its authority and importance; and, therefore, in its general character, tends to mischievous and not useful ends. This scheme begins by attempting to attach reproach and odium upon the whole body of the clergy of the country. It places a brand, a stigma upon every individual member of the profession. No minister of the gospel of any denomination is allowed to come within the grounds of this college on any occasion, or for any purpose whatever. They are excluded as if their presence might cause a pestilence. When have they deserved it? Where have they deserved it? How have they deserved it?
“I hope that our learned men have done something for our literature abroad. I hope that our courts of justice have done something to elevate the profession of law. I hope that the discussions of Congress have done something to ameliorate the condition of the human race. But I contend that no literary efforts, no constitutional discussions, nothing that has been done or said in favor of the great interests of universal man has done this country more credit, at home and abroad, than the establishment of our body of clergymen—their support by voluntary contributions, and the general excellence of their character for piety and learning; and yet every one of these, the Christian ministers of the United States, is denied the privileges which are opened to the vilest of our race. Did a man ever live that had respect for Christian religion and yet had no regard for any one of its ministers? Did that system of instruction ever exist which denied the whole body of Christian teachers, and yet called itself a system of Christianity?
“I maintain that, in any institution for the instruction of youth, where the authority of God is disowned, the duties of Christianity derided, and its ministers shut out from its proceedings, there can be no more charity found to exist than evil can spring out of the Bible, error out of truth, or hatred from love. If charity denies its birth and parentage, turns infidel to the great doctrines of the Christian religion, it is no longer charity. It is no longer charity either in a Christian sense nor in the sense of jurisprudence, for it separates itself from its own creation.
“Now let us look at the conditions and prospects of these tender children who are to be submitted to the experiment of instruction without Christianity. They are taken before they know the alphabet, they are kept until the period of early manhood, and then sent into the world. By this time their characters will be stamped. If there is any truth in the Bible, if there is anything established by the experience of mankind, in this first third of life the character is stamped. What sort of a character is likely to be made by this experimental system of instruction? What will be the effect on the minds of children left solely to its pernicious influences? Morality without sentiment; benevolence toward man without a sense of responsibility toward God; the duties of this life performed with no reference to the life to come,—this is Mr. Girard’s theory of useful education. I do not intend to leave this part of the cause without a still more distinct statement of the objections to this scheme of instruction. I deem it due to Christianity to take up this scheme of Mr. Girard, and show how mistaken is the idea of calling it a charity. In the first place, this scheme is derogatory to Christianity, because it rejects Christianity from the education of youth by rejecting its teachers, by rejecting the ordinary methods of instilling religion into the minds of youth. He who rejects the ordinary means of attaining an end, means to defeat the end itself, or else he has no meaning. And this is true, although the means originally be means of human appointment, and resting on no higher authority.
“This scheme is derogatory to Christianity because it rejects the ministry. Where was Christianity ever received, where were its waters ever poured into the human heart, except in the track of a Christian ministry? It is all idle and a mockery to pretend that any man has respect for the Christian religion who yet derides and stigmatizes all its ministers and teachers. It is all idle, it is a mockery and an insult to common sense to maintain that a school for the instruction of youth from which Christian teachers and the ministry is sedulously shut out, is not deistical and infidel, both in its purpose and tendency.
“In the next place, this plan is derogatory to Christianity because it proceeds upon the presumption that the Christian religion is not the only true foundation, or any necessary foundation of morals.
“In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere, never. Everywhere and at all times it has been and is regarded as essential. It is the essence, the vitality of useful instruction. From all this Mr. Girard dissents. He dissents not only from all sentiments of Christian mankind, from common conviction and the experience of all, but from still higher authority, the Word of God itself. When little children were brought into the presence of the Son of God, he said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ Unto me. He did not send them first for lessons in morals to the schools of the Pharisees or Sadducees, or to the lessons and precepts phylactered on the garments of the Jewish priesthood, but opened at once the everlasting fountain of living waters. That injunction is of perpetual obligation. It is of force everywhere and at all times. Not only my heart, my judgment, my belief, and my conscience instruct me that this great precept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred,—the solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, it is so utterly at variance with the system of philosophical morality advocated here, that I stand and speak in fear of being influenced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of my professional duties.
“Another important point involved in this question is, what becomes of the Christian Sabbath in a school thus established? I say that in this institution, under Mr. Girard’s scheme, the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not take place, because the means of observing it are excluded. There can be no Sabbath in this college. It would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard’s whole scheme to allow these children to go out and attend public places of worship as it would be to have ministers of religion preach to them within the walls; because, if they go out to hear preaching, they will hear just as much about clashing doctrines, and more, than if appointed teachers officiated in the college.
“I come now to the consideration of the second part of this clause in the will; that is to say, the reasons assigned by Mr. Girard for making these restrictions with regard to the ministers of religion, and I say that these are much more derogatory to Christianity than the main provision itself, excluding them. He says that there are such a multitude of sects and such diversity of opinion that he will exclude all religion, and all its ministers, in order to keep the minds of the children free from clashing controversy. Now, does not this subvert all belief in the utility of teaching the Christian religion to youth at all? Certainly it is a broad and bold denial of such utility. To say that the evil resulting from the differences of sects and creeds overbalances all the benefits which the best education can give them, that is but to say that the branches of the tree of religion are so twisted and twined, and run so much over and into each other that, therefore, there is no remedy but to lay the ax at the root of the tree itself. It means that and nothing less. But this objection to the multitude and differences of religious sects is but the old story, the old infidel argument. It is notorious that there are certain religious truths which are admitted and believed by all Christians. All believe in the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the responsibility in another world for our conduct in this, in the divine authority of the New Testament; and can not all these truths be taught to children without their minds being perplexed by the clashing doctrines of controversy? Most certainly they can. Apply the reasoning advanced by Mr. Girard to human institutions and you will tear them all up by the root, as you would inevitably tear all divine institutions up by the root if such reasoning is to prevail. At the opening of the first Congress there was a doubt as to the propriety of opening with prayer, and the reason assigned was, as here, the great diversity of opinions. At length Mr. Samuel Adams, with an air of impressive venerableness, rose in that assembly and, with the air of a perfect puritan, said that it did not become men, professing to be Christians, who had come together for solemn deliberation in an hour of extremity to say that there was so wide a difference in their religious beliefs that they could not bow the knee in prayer to the Almighty, whose advice and assistance they hoped to attain. Opposed to all prelacy as he was, Mr. Adams moved that the Episcopalian clergyman should address the throne of Grace in prayer. The minister read the service and then, as if moved by the occasion, broke out into extemporaneous prayer. Those men who were about to resort to force to obtain their rights, were moved to tears. Depend upon it, where there is a spirit of Christianity there is a spirit which rises above forms, above ceremonies, independent of sect or creed, and the controversies of clashing doctrine.
“It has been said by the other side that there was no teaching against religion or Christianity in this system. I deny it. The whole testament is one bold proclamation against Christianity and religion of every creed. The children are to be brought up in the principles declared in that testament. They are to learn to be suspicious of Christianity and religion; to keep clear of it, that their breasts may not become susceptible of the influences of Christianity in the slightest degree. They are to be taught that religion is not a matter for the heart or conscience, but for the decision of the cool judgment of mature years; that at the period when the whole Christian world deems it most desirable to instil the chastening influences of Christianity into the tender and comparatively pure mind and heart of the child, ere the cares and corruptions of the world have reached and seared it: at that period the child, in this college, is to be carefully excluded therefrom, and to be told that its influence is pernicious and dangerous in the extreme. Why, the whole system is a constant preaching against Christianity and against religion, and I insist that there is no charity and can be no charity in that system of instruction from which Christianity is excluded. Before closing the argument I repeat again the proposition that the proposed school in its true character, objects and tendencies is derogatory to Christianity and religion. If it be so, then I maintain that it can not be considered a charity, and as such entitled to the just protection and support of a court of equity. I consider this the great question for the consideration of this court. I may be excused for pressing it on the attention of your honors. It is one which, in its decision, is to influence the happiness, the temporal and spiritual welfare of one hundred millions of human beings alive and to be born in this land. Its decision will give a hue to the apparent character of our institutions. It will be a comment on their spirit to the whole Christian world. I again press the question to your honors: Is a clear, plain, positive system for the instruction of children, founded on clear and plain objects of infidelity,—a charity in the eyes of the law and as such entitled to the privileges awarded to charities in a court of equity?”
[MAY.]
By LUELLA CLARK.
O the apple blossoms!
O the roses sweet!
O the songs of gladness
Where the thrushes meet.
O the swaying grasses,
Where the bobolinks swing;
O the yellow twilights
When the robins sing.
O the light and laughter
Of the woods and ways;
All things glad and gracious,
Crown the long May days.