The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 95, September 1865 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

by Various

PART I.

On a certain mild March evening, A. D. 1864, the Ducklow kitchen had a general air of waiting for somebody. Mrs. Ducklow sat knitting by the light of a kerosene lamp, but paused ever and anon, neglecting her stocking, and knitting her brows instead, with an aspect of anxious listening. The old gray cat, coiled up on a cushion at her side, purring in her sleep, purred and slept as if she knew perfectly well who was coming soon to occupy that chair, and meant to make the most of it. The old-fashioned clock, perched upon the high mantel-piece of the low-studded room, ticked away lonesomely, as clocks only tick when somebody is waited for who does not come. Even the tea-kettle on the stove seemed to be in the secret, for it simmered and sang after the manner of a wise old tea-kettle fully conscious of the importance of its mission. The side-table, which was simply a leaf on hinges fixed in the wall, and looked like an apron when it was down, giving to that side of the kitchen a curious resemblance to Mrs. Ducklow, and rested on one arm when it was up, in which position it reminded you more of Mr. Ducklow leaning his chin on his hand,—the side-table was set with a single plate, knife and fork, and cup and saucer, indicating that the person waited for was expected to partake of refreshments. Behind the stairway-door was a small boy kicking off a very small pair of trousers with a degree of reluctance which showed that he also wished to sit up and wait for somebody.

"Say, ma, need I go to bed now!" he exclaimed rather than inquired, starting to pull on the trousers again after he had got one leg free. "He'll want me to hold the lantern for him to take care of the hoss."

"No, no, Taddy," for that was the boy's name, (short for Thaddeus,) "you'll only be in the way, if you set up. Besides, I want to mend your pants."

"You're always wantin' to mend my pants!" complained the youngster, who seemed to think that it was by no means to do him a favor, but rather to afford herself a gloating pleasure, that Mrs. Ducklow, who had a mania for patching, required the garment to be delivered up to her. "I wish there wasn't such a thing as pants in the world!"

"Don't talk that way, after all the trouble and expense we've been to to clothe ye!" said the good woman, reprovingly. "Where would you be now, if 't wasn't for me and yer Pa Ducklow?"

"I shouldn't be goin' to bed when I don't want to!" he muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

"You ungrateful child!" said Mrs. Ducklow, not without reason, for Taddy knew very well—at least he was reminded of the fact often enough—that he owed to them his home and all its comforts. "Wouldn't be going to bed when you don't want to! You wouldn't be going to bed when you want to, more likely; for ten to one you wouldn't have a bed to go to. Think of the sitewation you was in when we adopted ye, and then talk that way!"

As this was an unanswerable argument, Taddy contented himself with thrusting a hand into his trousers and recklessly increasing the area of the forthcoming patch. "If she likes to mend so well, let her!" thought he.

"Taddy, are you tearing them pants?" cried Mrs. Ducklow sharply, hearing a sound alarmingly suggestive of cracking threads.

"I was pullin' 'em off," said Taddy. "I never see such mean cloth! can't touch it, but it has to tear.—Say, ma, do ye think he'll bring me home a drum?"

"You'll know in the morning."

"I want to know to-night. He said mabby he would. Say, can't I set up?"

"I'll let ye know whether you can set up, after you've been told so many times!"

So saying, Mrs. Ducklow rose from her chair, laid down her knitting-work, and started for the stairway-door with great energy and a rattan. But Taddy, who perceived retribution approaching, did not see fit to wait for it. He darted up the stairs and crept into his bunk with the lightness and agility of a squirrel.

"I'm a-bed! Say, ma, I'm a-bed!" he cried, eager to save the excellent lady the trouble of ascending the stairs. "I'm 'most asleep a'ready!"

"It 's a good thing for you you be!" said Mrs. Ducklow, gathering up the garment he had left behind the door. "Why, Taddy, how you did tear it! I've a good notion to give ye a smart trouncing now!"

Taddy began to snore, and Mrs. Ducklow concluded that she would not wake him.

"It is mean cloth, as he says!" she exclaimed, examining it by the kerosene lamp. "For my part, I consider it a great misfortin that shoddy was ever invented. Ye can't buy any sort of a ready-made garment for boys now-days but it comes to pieces at the least wear or strain, like so much brown paper."

She was shaping the necessary patch, when the sound of wheels coming into the yard told her that the person so long waited for had arrived.

"That you?" said she, opening the kitchen-door and looking out into the darkness.

"Yes," replied a man's voice.

"Ye want the lantern?"

"No: jest set the lamp in the winder, and I guess I can git along. Whoa!" And the man jumped to the ground.

"Had good luck?" the woman inquired in a low voice.

"I'll tell ye when I come in," was the evasive answer.

"Has he bought me a drum?" bawled Taddy from the chamber-stairs.

"Do you want me to come up there and 'tend to ye?" demanded Mrs. Ducklow.

The boy was not particularly ambitious of enjoying that honor.

"You be still and go to sleep, then, or you'll git drummed!"

And she latched the stairway-door, greatly to the dismay of Master Taddy, who felt that some vast and momentous secret was being kept from him. Overhearing whispered conferences between his adopted parents in the morning, noticing also the cautious glances they cast at him, and the persistency with which they repeatedly sent him away out of sight on slight and absurd pretences, he had gathered a fact and drawn an inference, namely, that a great purchase was to be made by Mr. Ducklow that day in town, and that, on his return, he (Taddy) was to be surprised by the presentation of what he had long coveted and teased for,—a new drum.

To lie quietly in bed under such circumstances was an act that required more self-control than Master Taddy possessed. Accordingly he stole down stairs and listened, feeling sure, that, if the drum should come in, Mrs. Ducklow, and perhaps Mr. Ducklow himself, would be unable to resist the temptation of thumping it softly to try its sound.

Mrs. Ducklow was busy taking her husband's supper out of the oven, where it had been keeping warm for him, pouring hot water into the teapot, and giving the last touches to the table. Then came the familiar grating noise of a boot on the scraper. Mrs. Ducklow stepped quickly to open the door for Mr. Ducklow. Taddy, well aware that he was committing an indiscretion, but inspired by the wild hope of seeing a new drum come into the kitchen, ventured to unlatch the stairway-door, open it a crack, and peep.

Mr. Ducklow entered, bringing a number of parcels containing purchases from the stores, but no drum visible to Taddy.

"Did you buy?" whispered Mrs. Ducklow, relieving him of his load.

Mr. Ducklow pointed mysteriously at the stairway-door, lifting his eyebrows interrogatively.

"Taddy?" said Mrs. Ducklow. "Oh, he's abed,—though I never in my life had such a time to git him off out of the way; for he'd somehow got possessed with the idee that you was to buy something, and he wanted to set up and see what it was."

"Strange how children will ketch things sometimes, best ye can do to prevent!" said Mr. Ducklow.

"But did ye buy?"

"You better jest take them matches and put 'em out o' the way, fust thing, 'fore ye forgit it. Matches are dangerous to have layin' around, and I never feel safe till they're safe."

And Mr. Ducklow hung up his hat, and laid his overcoat across a chair in the next room, with a carefulness and deliberation exhausting to the patience of good Mrs. Ducklow, and no less trying to that of Master Taddy, who was waiting to hear the important question answered.

"Come!" said she, after hastily disposing of the matches, "what's the use of keeping me in suspense? Did ye buy?"

"Where did ye put 'em?" asked Mr. Ducklow, taking down the bootjack.

"In the little tin pail, where we always keep 'em, of course! Where should I put 'em?"

"You needn't be cross! I asked, 'cause I didn't hear ye put the cover on. I don't believe ye did put the cover on, either; and I sha'n't be easy till ye do."

Mrs. Ducklow returned to the pantry; and her husband, pausing a moment, leaning over a chair, heard the cover go on the tin pail with a click and a clatter which betrayed, that, if ever there was an angry and impatient cover, that was.

"Anybody been here to-day?" Mr. Ducklow inquired, pressing the heel of his right boot in the jack, and steadying the toe under a round of the chair.

"No!" replied Mrs. Ducklow.

"Ye been anywhere?"

"Yes!"

"Where?" mildly inquired Mr. Ducklow.

"No matter!" said Mrs. Ducklow, with decided ill-temper.

Mr. Ducklow drew a deep sigh, as he turned and looked upon her.

"Wal, you be about the most uncomf'table woman ever I see!" he said, with a dark and dissatisfied countenance.

"If you can't answer my question, I don't see why I need take the trouble to answer yours,"—and Mrs. Ducklow returned with compressed lips to her patching. "Yer supper is ready; ye can eat it when ye please."

"I was answerin' your question as fast as I could," said her husband, in a tone of excessive mildness, full of sorrow and discouragement.

"I haven't seen any signs of your answering it!"

And the housewife's fingers stitched away energetically at the patch.

"Wal, wal! ye don't see everything!"

Mr. Ducklow, having already removed one boot, drew gently on the other. As it came off, something fell out on the floor. He picked it up, and handed it with a triumphant smile to Mrs. Ducklow.

"Oh, indeed! is this the"——

She was radiant. Her hands dropped their work, and opened the package, which consisted of a large, unsealed envelope and folded papers within. These she unfolded and examined with beaming satisfaction.

"But what made ye carry 'em in yer boot so?"

"To tell the truth," said Mr. Ducklow, in a suppressed voice, "I was afraid o' bein' robbed. I never was so afraid o' bein' robbed in my life! So, jest as I got clear o' the town, I took it out o' my pocket," (meaning, not the town, but the envelope containing the papers,) "an' tucked it down my boot-leg. Then, all the way home, I was scaret when I was ridin' alone, an' still more scaret when I heard anybody comin' after me. You see, it's jest like so much money."

And he arranged the window-curtain in a manner to prevent the sharpest-eyed burglar from peeping in and catching a glimpse of the papers.

He neglected to secure the stairway-door, however. There, in his hiding-place behind it, stood Taddy, shivering in his shirt, but peeping and listening in a fever of curiosity which nothing could chill. His position was such that he could not see Mr. Ducklow or the documents, and his mind was left free to revel in the most daring fancies regarding the wonderful purchase. He had not yet fully given up the idea of a new drum, although the image, which vaguely shaped itself in his mind, of Mr. Ducklow "tucking it down his boot-leg," presented difficulties.

"This is the bond, you see," Mr. Ducklow explained; "and all these little things that fill out the sheet are the cowpons. You have only to cut off one o' these, take it to the bank when it is due, and draw the interest on it in gold!"

"But suppose you lose the bonds?" queried Mrs. Ducklow, regarding, not without awe, the destructible paper representatives of so much property.

"That's what I've been thinkin' of; that's what's made me so narvous. I supposed 't would be like so much railroad stock, good for nothin' to nobody but the owner, and somethin' that could be replaced, if I lost it. But the man to the bank said no,—'t was like so much currency, and I must look out for it. That's what filled all the bushes with robbers as I come along the road. And I tell ye, 't was a relief to feel I'd got safe home at last; though I don't see now how we're to keep the plaguy things so we sha'n't feel uneasy about 'em."

"Nor I neither!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, turning pale. "Suppose the house should take fire! or burglars should break in! I don't wonder you was so particular about the matches! Dear me! I shall be frightened to death! I'd no idee 't was to be such dangerous property! I shall be thinking of fires and burglars!—O-h-h-h!"

The terrified woman uttered a wild scream; for just then a door flew suddenly open, and there burst into the room a frightful object, making a headlong plunge at the precious papers. Mr. Ducklow sprang back against the table set for his supper with a force that made everything jar. Then he sprang forward again, instinctively reaching to grasp and save from plunder the coupon bonds. But by this time both he and his wife had become aware of the nature of the intrusion.

"Thaddeus!" ejaculated the lady. "How came you here? Get up! Give an account of yourself!"

Taddy, whose abrupt appearance in the room had been altogether involuntary, was quite innocent of any predatory designs. Leaning forward farther and farther, in the ardor of discovery, he had, when too late to save himself, experienced the phenomenon of losing his balance, and pitched from the stairway into the kitchen with a violence that threw the door back against the wall with a bang, and laid him out, a sprawling figure, in scanty, ghostly apparel, on the floor.

"What ye want? What ye here for?" sternly demanded Mr. Ducklow, snatching him up by one arm, and shaking him.

"Don't know," faltered the luckless youngster, speaking the truth for once in his life. "Fell."

"Fell! How did you come to fall? What are you out o' bed for?"

"Don't know,"—snivelling and rubbing his eyes. "Didn't know I was."

"Got up without knowing it! That's a likely story! How could that happen, you Sir?" said Mrs. Ducklow.

"Don't know, 'thout 't was I got up in my sleep," said Taddy, who had on rare occasions been known to indulge in moderate somnambulism.

"In your sleep!" said Mr. Ducklow, incredulously.

"I guess so. I was dreamin' you brought me home a new drum,—tucked down yer—boot-leg," faltered Taddy.

"Strange!" said Mr. Ducklow, with a glance at his wife. "But how could I bring a drum in my boot-leg?"

"Don't know, 'thout it's a new kind, one that'll shet up."

Taddy looked eagerly round, but saw nothing new or interesting, except some curious-looking papers which Mrs. Ducklow was hastily tucking into an envelope.

"Say, did ye, pa?"

"Did I? Of course I didn't! What nonsense! But how came ye down here? Speak the truth!"

"I dreamt you was blowin' it up, and I sprung to ketch it, when, fust I knowed, I was on the floor, like a thousan' o' brick! 'Mos' broke my knee-pans!" whimpered Taddy. "Say, didn't ye bring me home nothin'? What's them things?"

"Nothin' little boys know anything about. Now run back to bed again. I forgot to buy you a drum to-day, but I'll git ye somethin' next time I go to town,—if I think on 't."

"So ye always say, but ye never think on't!" complained Taddy.

"There, there! Somebody's comin'! What a lookin' object you are, to be seen by visitors!"

There was a knock. Taddy disappeared. Mr. Ducklow turned anxiously to his wife, who was hastily hiding the bonds in her palpitating bosom.

"Who can it be this time o' night?"

"Sakes alive!" said Mrs. Ducklow, in whose mind burglars were uppermost, "I wish, whoever 't is, they'd keep away! Go to the door," she whispered, resuming her work.

Mr. Ducklow complied; and, as the visitor entered, there she sat plying her needle as industriously and demurely as though neither bonds nor burglars had ever been heard of in that remote rural district.

"Ah, Miss Beswick, walk in!" said Mr. Ducklow.

A tall, spare, somewhat prim-looking female of middle age, with a shawl over her head, entered, nodding a curt and precise good-evening, first to Mr. Ducklow, then to his wife.

"What, that you?" said Mrs. Ducklow, with curiosity and surprise. "Where on 'arth did you come from? Set her a chair, why don't ye, father?"

Mr. Ducklow, who was busy slipping his feet into a pair of old shoes, hastened to comply with the hospitable suggestion.

"I've only jest got home," said he, apologetically, as if fearful lest the fact of his being caught in his stocking-feet should create suspicions: so absurdly careful of appearances some people become, when they have anything to conceal. "Jest had time to kick my boots off, you see. Take a seat."

"Thank ye. I s'pose you'll think I'm wild, makin' calls at this hour!"

And Miss Beswick seated herself, with an angular movement, and held herself prim and erect in the chair.

"Why, no, I don't," said Mrs. Ducklow, civilly; while at the same time she did think it very extraordinary and unwarrantable conduct on the part of her neighbor to be walking the streets and entering the dwellings of honest people, alone, after eight o'clock, on a dark night.

"You're jest in time to set up and take a cup o' tea with my husband": an invitation she knew would not be accepted, and which she pressed accordingly. "Ye better, Miss Beswick, if only to keep him company. Take yer things, won't ye?"

"No, I don't go a-visitin', to take off my things and drink tea, this time o' night!"

Miss Beswick condescended, however, to throw back the shawl from her head, exposing to view a long, sinewy neck, the strong lines of which ran up into her cheeks, and ramified into wrinkles, giving severity to her features. At the same time emerged from the fold of the garment, as it were, a knob, a high, bare poll, so lofty and narrow, and destitute of the usual ornament, natural or false, that you involuntarily looked twice, to assure yourself that it was really that lovely and adorable object, a female head.

"I've jest run over to tell you the news," said Miss Beswick.

"Nothing bad, I hope?" said Mrs. Ducklow. "No robbers in town? for massy sake!" And Mrs. Ducklow laid her hand on her bosom, to make sure that the bonds were still there.

"No, good news,—good for Sophrony, at any rate!"

"Ah! she has heard from Reuben?"

"No!" The severity of the features was modified by a grim smile. "No!" and the little, high knob of a head was shaken expressively.

"What then?" Ducklow inquired.

"Reuben has come home!" The words were spoken triumphantly, and the keen gray eyes of the elderly maiden twinkled.

"Come home! home!" echoed both Ducklows at once, in great astonishment.

Miss Beswick assured them of the fact.

"My! how you talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow. "I never dreamed of such a——When did he come?"

"About an hour 'n' a half ago. I happened to be in to Sophrony's. I had jest gone over to set a little while with her and keep her company,—as I've often done, she seemed so lonely, livin' there with her two children alone in the house, her husband away so. Her friends ha'n't been none too attentive to her in his absence, she thinks,—and so I think."

"I—I hope you don't mean that as a hint to us, Miss Beswick," said Mrs. Ducklow.

"You can take it as such, or not, jest as you please! I leave it to your own consciences. You know best whether you have done your duty to Sophrony and her family, whilst her husband has been off to the war; and I sha'n't set myself up for a judge. You never had any boys of your own, and so you adopted Reuben, jest as you have lately adopted Thaddeus; and I s'pose you think you've done well by him, jest as you think you will do by Thaddeus, if he's a good boy, and stays with you till he's twenty-one."

"I hope no one thinks or says the contrary, Miss Beswick!" said Mr. Ducklow, gravely, with flushed face.

"There may be two opinions on that subject!" said Miss Beswick, with a slight toss of the head, setting that small and irregular spheroid at a still loftier and more imposing altitude. "Reuben came to you when he was jest old enough to be of use about the house and on the farm; and if I recollect right, you didn't encourage idleness in him long. You didn't give his hands much chance to do 'some mischief still'! No, indeed! nobody can accuse you of that weakness!" And the skin of the wrinkled features tightened with a terrible grin.

"Nobody can say we ever overworked the boy, or ill used him in any way!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, excitedly.

"No! I don't say it! But this I'll say, for I've had it in my mind ever since Sophrony was left alone,—I couldn't help seein' and feelin', and, now you've set me a-talkin', I may as well speak out. Reuben was always a good boy, and a willin' boy, as you yourselves must allow; and he paid his way from the first."

"I don't know about that!" interposed Mr. Ducklow, taking up his knife and fork, and dropping them again, in no little agitation. "He was a good and willin' boy, as you say; but the expense of clothin' him and keepin' him to school"——

"He paid his way from the first!" repeated Miss Beswick, sternly. "You kept him to school winters, when he did more work 'fore and after school than any other boy in town. He worked all the time summers; and soon he was as good as a hired man to you. He never went to school a day after he was fifteen; and from that time he was better 'n any hired man, for he was faithful, and took an interest, and looked after and took care of things, as no hired man ever would or could do, as I've heard you yourself say, Mr. Ducklow!"

"Reuben was a good, faithful boy: I never denied that! I never denied that!"

"Well, he stayed with you till he was twenty-one,—did ye a man's service for the last five or six years; then you giv' him what you called a settin' out,—a new suit o' clothes, a yoke of oxen, some farmin'-tools, and a hundred dollars in money! You, with yer thousands, Mr. Ducklow, giv' him a hundred dollars in money!"

"That was only a beginnin', only a beginnin', I've always said!" declared the red-flushed farmer.

"I know it; and I s'pose you'll continner to say so till the day of yer death! Then may-be you'll remember Reuben in yer will. That's the way! Keep puttin' him off as long as you can possibly hold on to your property yourself,—then, when you see you've got to go and leave it, give him what you ought to 've gi'n him years before. There a'n't no merit in that kind o' justice, did ye know it, Mr. Ducklow! I tell ye, what belongs to Reuben belongs to him now,—not ten or twenty year hence, when you've done with it, and he most likely won't need it. A few hundred dollars now'll be more useful to him than all your thousands will be by-and-by. After he left you, he took the Moseley farm; everybody respected him, everybody trusted him; he was doin' well, everybody said; then he married Sophrony, and a good and faithful wife she's been to him; and finally he concluded to buy the farm, which you yourself said was a good idee, and encouraged him in 't."

"So it was; Reuben used judgment in that, and he'd have got along well enough, if 't hadn't been for the war," said Mr. Ducklow; while his wife sat dumb, not daring to measure tongues with their vigorous-minded and plain-speaking neighbor.

"Jest so!" said Miss Beswick. "If it hadn't been for the war! He had made his first payments, and would have met the rest as they came due, no doubt of it. But the war broke out, and he left all to sarve his country. Says he, 'I'm an able-bodied man, and I ought to go,' says he. His business was as important, and his wife and children was as dear to him, as anybody's; but he felt it his duty to go, and he went. They didn't give no such big bounties to volunteers then as they do now, and it was a sacrifice to him every way when he enlisted. But says he, 'I'll jest do my duty,' says he, 'and trust to Providence for the rest.' You didn't discourage his goin',—and you didn't incourage him, neither, the way you'd ought to."

"My! what on 'arth, Miss Beswick!—--Seems to me you're takin' it upon yourself to say things that are uncalled for, to say the least! I can't understand what should have sent you here, to tell me what's my business, and what a'n't, this fashion! As if I didn't know my own duty and intentions!" And Mr. Ducklow poured his tea into his plate, and buttered his bread with a teaspoon.

"I s'pose she's been talking with Sophrony, and she has sent her to interfere."

"Mrs. Ducklow, you don't s'pose no such thing! You know Sophrony wouldn't send anybody on such an arrant; and you know I a'n't a person to do such arrants, or be made a cat's-paw of by anybody. I a'n't handsome, not partic'larly; and I a'n't wuth my thousands, like some folks I know; and I never got married, for the best reason in the world,—them that offered themselves I wouldn't have, and them I would have had didn't offer themselves; and I a'n't so good a Christian as I might be, I'm aware. I know my lacks as well as anybody; but bein' a spy and a cat's-paw a'n't one of 'em. I don't do things sly and underhand. If I've anything to say to anybody, I go right to 'em, and say it to their face,—sometimes perty blunt, I allow. But I don't wait to be sent by other folks. I've a mind o' my own, and my own way o' doin' things,—that you know as well as anybody. So, when you say you s'pose Sophrony or anybody else sent me here to interfere, I say you s'pose what a'n't true, and what you know a'n't true, Mrs. Ducklow!"

Mrs. Ducklow was annihilated; and the visitor went on.

"As for you, Mr. Ducklow, I haven't said you don't know your own duty and intentions. I've no doubt you think you do, at any rate."

"Very well! then why can't you leave me to do what I think 's my duty? Everybody ought to have that privilege."

"You think so?"

"Sartin, Miss Beswick; don't you?"

"Why, then, I ought to have the same."

"Of course; nobody in this house'll prevent your doin' what you're satisfied 's your duty."

"Thank ye! much obleeged!" said Miss Beswick, with gleaming, gristly features. "That's all I ask. Now I'm satisfied it's my duty to tell ye what I've been tellin' ye, and what I'm goin' to tell ye: that's my duty. And then it'll be your duty to do what you think 's right. That's plain, a'n't it?"

"Wal, wal!" said Mr. Ducklow, discomfited; "I can't hender yer talkin', I s'pose; though it seems a man ought to have a right to peace and quiet in his own house."

"Yes, and in his own conscience too!" said Miss Beswick. "And if you'll hearken to me now, I promise you'll have peace and quiet in your conscience, and in your house too, such as you never have had yit. I s'pose you know your great fault, don't ye? Graspin',—that's your fault, that's your besettin' sin, Mr. Ducklow. You used to give it as an excuse for not helpin' Reuben more, that you had your daughter to provide for. Well, your daughter has got married; she married a rich man,—you looked out for that,—and she's provided for, fur as property can provide for any one. Now, without a child in the world to feel anxious about, you keep layin' up and layin' up, and 'll continner to lay up, I s'pose, till ye die, and leave a great fortin' to your daughter, that already has enough, and jest a pittance to Reuben and Thaddeus."

"No, no, Miss Beswick! you're wrong, you're wrong, Miss Beswick! I mean to do the handsome thing by both on 'em."

"Mean to! ye mean to! That's the way ye flatter yer conscience, and cheat yer own soul. Why don't ye do what ye mean to do to once, and make sure on 't? That's the way to git the good of your property. I tell ye, the time's comin' when the recollection of havin' done a good action will be a greater comfort to ye than all the property in the world. Then you'll look back, and say, 'Why didn't I do this and do that with my money, when 't was in my power, 'stead of hoardin' up and hoardin' up for others to spend after me?' Now, as I was goin' to say, ye didn't discourage Reuben's enlistin', and ye didn't incourage him the way ye might. You ought to 've said to him, 'Go, Reuben, if ye see it to be yer duty; and, as fur as money goes, ye sha'n't suffer for 't. I've got enough for all on us; and I'll pay yer debts, if need be, and see 't yer fam'ly 's kep' comf'table while ye're away.' But that's jest what ye didn't say, and it's jest what ye didn't do. All the time Reuben's been sarvin' his country, he's had his debts and his family expenses to worry him; and you know it's been all Sophrony could do, by puttin' forth all her energies, and strainin' every narve, to keep herself and children from goin' hungry and ragged. You've helped 'em a little, now and then, in driblets, it's true; but, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Beswick; and she smote her hands, palms downwards, upon her lap, with a look and gesture which signified that words utterly failed to express her feelings on the subject.

Mrs. Ducklow, who, since her annihilation, had scarcely ventured to look up, sat biting her lips, drawing breaths of suppressed anger and impatience, and sewing the patch to the trousers and to her own apron under them. There was an awful silence, broken only by the clock ticking, and Mr. Ducklow lifting his knife and fork, and letting them fall again. At last he forced himself to speak.

"Wal, you've read us a pretty smart lectur', Miss Beswick, I must say! I can't consaive what should make ye take such an interest in our affairs; but it's very kind in ye,—very kind, to be sure!"

"Take an interest! Haven't I seen Sophrony's struggles with them children? And haven't I seen Reuben come home this very night, a sick man, with a broken constitution, and no prospect before him but to give up his farm, lose all he has paid, and be thrown upon the charities of the world with his wife and children? And if the charities of friends are so cold, what can he expect of the charities of the world? Take an interest! I wish you took half as much! Here I've sot half an hour, and you haven't thought to ask how Reuben appeared, or anything about him!"

"May-be there's a good reason for that, Miss Beswick. 'Twas on my lips to ask half a dozen times; but you talked so fast, you wouldn't give me a chance."

"Well, I'm glad you've got some excuse, though a poor one!" said Miss Beswick.

"How is Reuben?" Mrs. Ducklow meekly inquired.

"All broken to pieces,—a mere shadder of what he was. He's had his old wound troublin' him agin; then he's had the fever, that came within one of takin' him out o' the world. He was in the hospitals, ye know, for two months or more; but finally the doctors see 't his only chance was to be sent home, weak as he was. A sergeant that was comin' on brought him all the way, and took him straight home; and that's the reason he got along so sudden and unexpected, even to Sophrony. Oh, if you could seen their meetin', as I did! then you wouldn't sneer at my takin' an interest!" And Miss Beswick, strong-minded as she was, found it necessary to make use of her handkerchief. "I didn't stop only to help put him to bed, and fix things a little; then I left 'em alone, and run over to tell ye. It's a pity you didn't know he was in town when you was there to-day, so as to bring him home with ye. But I s'pose you had your investments to look after. Come, now, Mr. Ducklow, how many thousan' dollars have you invested, since Reuben's been off to the war, and his folks have been sufferin' to home? You may have been layin' up hundreds, or even thousands, that way, this very day, for aught I know. But let me tell ye, you won't git no good of such property,—it'll only be a cuss to ye,—till you do the right thing by Reuben. Mark my word!"

There was another long silence.

"You a'n't going, be ye Miss Beswick?" said Mrs. Ducklow,—for the visitor had arisen. "What's yer hurry?"

"No hurry at all; but I've done my arrant and said my say, and may as well be goin'. Good night. Good night, Mr. Ducklow."

And Miss Beswick, pulling her shawl over her head, stalked out of the house like some tall, gaunt spectre, leaving the Ducklows to recover as best they could from the consternation into which they had been thrown by her coming.

"Did you ever?" said Mrs. Ducklow, gaining courage to speak after the visitor was out of hearing.

"She's got a tongue!" said Mr. Ducklow.

"Strange she should speak of your investing money to-day! D' ye s'pose she knows?"

"I don't see how she can know." And Mr. Ducklow paced the room in deep trouble. "I've been careful not to give a hint on 't to anybody, for I knew jest what folks would say: 'If Ducklow has got so much money to dispose of, he'd better give Reuben a lift.' I know how folks talk."

"Coming here to browbeat us!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow. "I wonder ye didn't be a little more plain with her, father! I wouldn't have sot and been dictated to as tamely as you did!"

"You wouldn't? Then why did ye? She dictated to you as much as she did to me; and you scurce opened your head; you didn't dars' to say yer soul was your own!"

"Yes, I did, I"——.

"You ventur'd to speak once, and she shet ye up quicker 'n lightnin'! Now tell about you wouldn't have sot and been dictated to like a tame noodle, as I did!"

"I didn't say a tame noodle."

"Yes, ye did. I might have answered back sharp enough, but I was expectin' you to speak. Men don't like to dispute with women."

"That's your git-off," said Mrs. Ducklow, trembling with vexation. "You was jest as much afraid of her as I was. I never see ye so cowed in all my life."

"Cowed! I wasn't cowed, neither. How unreasonable, now, for you to cast all the blame on to me!"

And Mr. Ducklow, his features contracted into a black scowl, took his boots from the corner.

"Ye ha'n't got to go out, have ye?" said Mrs. Ducklow. "I shouldn't think you'd put on yer boots jest to step to the barn and see to the hoss."

"I'm goin' over to Reuben's."

"To Reuben's! Not to-night, father!"

"Yes, I think I better. He and Sophrony'll know we heard of his gittin' home, and they're enough inclined a'ready to feel we neglect 'em. Haven't ye got somethin' ye can send?"

"I don't know,"—curtly. "I've scurce ever been over to Sophrony's, but I've carried her a pie or cake or something; and mighty little thanks I got for it, as it turns out!"

"Why didn't ye say that to Miss Beswick, when she was runnin' us so hard about our never doin' anything for 'em?"

"'T wouldn't have done no good; I knew jest what she'd say. 'What's a pie or a cake now and then?'—that's jest the reply she'd have made.—Dear me! what have I been doing?"

Mrs. Ducklow, rising, had but just discovered that she had stitched the patch and the trousers to her apron.

"So much for Miss Beswick!" she exclaimed, untying the apron-strings, and flinging the united garments spitefully down upon a chair. "I do wish such folks would mind their own business and stay to home!"

"You've got the bonds safe?" said Mr. Ducklow, putting on his waistcoat.

"Yes; but I won't engage to keep 'em safe. They make me as narvous as can be. I'm afraid to be left alone in the house with 'em. Here, you take 'em."

"Don't be foolish. What harm can possibly happen to them or you while I'm away? You don't s'pose I want to lug them around with me wherever I go, do ye?"

"I'm sure it's no great lug. I s'pose you're afraid to go acrost the fields alone with 'em in yer pocket. What in the world we're going to do with 'em I don't see. If we go out, we can't take 'em with us, for fear of losing 'em, or of being robbed; and we sha'n't dare to leave 'em to home, fear the house'll burn up or git broke into."

"We can hide 'em where no burglar can find 'em," said Mr. Ducklow.

"Yes, and where nobody else can find 'em, neither, provided the house burns and neighbors come in to save things. I don't know but it'll be about as Miss Beswick said: we sha'n't take no comfort with property we ought to make over to Reuben."

"Do you think it ought to be made over to Reuben? If you do, it's new to me!"

"No, I don't!" replied Mrs. Ducklow, decidedly. "I guess we better put 'em in the clock-case for to-night, hadn't we?"

"Jest where they'd be discovered, if the house is robbed! No: I've an idee. Slip 'em under the settin'-room carpet. Let me take 'em: I can fix a place right here by the side of the door."

With great care and secrecy the bonds were deposited between the carpet and the floor, and a chair set over them.

"What noise was that?" said the farmer, starting.

"Thaddeus," cried Mrs. Ducklow, "is that you?"

It was Thaddeus, indeed, who, awaking from a real dream of the drum this time, and, hearing conversation in the room below, had once more descended the stairs to listen. What were the old people hiding there under the carpet? It must be those curious things in the envelope. And what were those things, about which so much mystery seemed necessary? Taddy was peeping and considering, when he heard his name called. He would have glided back to bed again, but Mrs. Ducklow, who sprang to the stairway-door, was too quick for him.

"What do you want now?" she demanded.

"I—I want you to scratch my back," said Taddy.

As he had often come to her with this innocent request, after undressing for bed, he did not see why the excuse would not pass as readily as the previous one of somnambulism. But Mrs. Ducklow was in no mood to be trifled with.

"I'll scratch your back for ye!" And seizing her rattan, she laid it smartly on the troublesome part, to the terror and pain of poor Taddy, who concluded that too much of a good thing was decidedly worse than nothing. "There, you Sir, that's a scratching that 'll last ye for one while!"

And giving him two or three parting cuts, not confined to the region of the back, but falling upon the lower latitudes, which they marked like so many geographical parallels, she dismissed him with a sharp injunction not to let himself be seen or heard again that night.

Taddy obeyed, and, crying himself to sleep, dreamed that he was himself a drum, and that Mrs. Ducklow beat him.

"Father!" called Mrs. Ducklow to her husband, who was at the barn, "do you know what time it is? It's nine o'clock! I wouldn't think of going over there to-night; they'll be all locked up, and abed and asleep, like as not."

"Wal, I s'pose I must do as you say," replied Mr. Ducklow, glad of an excuse not to go,—Miss Beswick's visit having left him in extremely low spirits.

Accordingly, after bedding down the horse and fastening the barn, he returned to the kitchen; and soon the prosperous couple retired to rest.

"Why, how res'less you be!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, in the middle of the night. "What's the reason ye can't sleep?"

"I don't know," groaned Mr. Ducklow. "I can't help thinkin' o' Miss Beswick. I never was so worked at any little thing."

"Well, well! forget it, father; and do go to sleep!"

"I feel I ought to have gone over to Reuben's! And I should have gone, if 't hadn't been for you!"

"Now how unreasonable to blame me!" said Mrs. Ducklow. "Ye might have gone; I only reminded ye how late it was."

Mr. Ducklow groaned, and turned over. He tried to forget Miss Beswick, Reuben, and the bonds, and at last he fell asleep.

"Father!" whispered Mrs. Ducklow, awaking him.

"What's the matter?"

"I think—I'm pretty sure—hark! I heard something sounded like somebody gitting into the kitchen winder!"

"It's your narvousness." Yet Mr. Ducklow listened for further indications of burglary. "Why can't ye be quiet and go to sleep, as you said to me?"

"I'm sure I heard something! Anybody might have looked through the blinds and seen us putting—you know—under the carpet."

"Nonsense! 't a'n't at all likely."

But Mr. Ducklow was more alarmed than he was willing to confess. He succeeded in quieting his wife's apprehensions; but at the same time the burden of solicitude and wakefulness seemed to pass from her mind only to rest upon his own. She soon after fell asleep; but he lay awake, hearing burglars in all parts of the house for an hour longer.

"What now?" suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow, starting up in bed.

"I thought I might as well git up and satisfy myself," replied her husband, in a low, agitated voice.

He had risen, and was groping his way to the kitchen.

"Is there anything?" she inquired, after listening long with chilling blood, expecting at each moment to hear him knocked down or throttled.

He made no reply, but presently came gliding softly back again.

"I can't find nothin'. But I never in all my life heard the floors creak so! I could have sworn there was somebody walkin' over 'em!"

"I guess you're a little excited, a'n't ye?"

"No,—I got over that; but I did hear noises!"

Mr. Ducklow, returning to his pillow, dismissed his fears, and once more composed his mind for slumber. But the burden of which he had temporarily relieved his wife now returned with redoubled force to the bosom of that virtuous lady. It seemed as if there was only a certain amount of available sleep in the house, and that, when one had it, the other must go without; while at the same time a swarm of fears perpetually buzzed in and out of the mind, whose windows wakefulness left open.

"Father!" said Mrs. Ducklow, giving him a violent shake.

"Hey? what?"—arousing from his first sound sleep.

"Don't you smell something burning?"

Ducklow snuffed; Mrs. Ducklow snuffed; they sat up in bed, and snuffed vivaciously in concert.

"No,—I can't say I do. Did you?"

"Jest as plain as ever I smelt anything in my life! But I don't so"—snuff, snuff—"not quite so distinct now."

"Seems to me I do smell somethin'," said Mr. Ducklow, imagination coming to his aid. "It can't be the matches, can it?"

"I thought of the matches, but I certainly covered 'em up tight."

They snuffed again,—first one, then the other,—now a series of quick, short snuffs, then one long, deep snuff, then a snuff by both together, as if by uniting their energies, like two persons pulling at a rope, they might accomplish what neither was equal to singly.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Ducklow.

"Why, what, father?"

"It's Thaddeus! He's been walkin' in his sleep. That's what we heard. And now he's got the matches and set the house afire!"

He bounded out of bed; he went stumbling over the chairs in the kitchen, and clattering among the tins in the pantry, and rushing blindly and wildly up the kitchen stairs, only to find the matches all right, Taddy fast asleep, and no indications anywhere, either to eye or nostril, of anything burning.

"'Twas all your imagination, mother!"

"My imagination! You was jest as frightened as I was. I'm sure I can't tell what it was I smelt; I can't smell it now. Did you feel for the—you know what?"

Mrs. Ducklow seemed to think there were evil ones listening, and it was dangerous to mention by name what was uppermost in the minds of both.

"I wish you would jest put your hand and see if they're all right; for I've thought several times I heard somebody taking on 'em out."

Mr. Ducklow had been troubled by similar fancies; so, getting down on his knees, he felt in the dark for the bonds.

"Good gracious!" he ejaculated.

"What now?" cried Mrs. Ducklow. "They a'n't gone, be they? You don't say they're gone!"

"Sure 's the world!—No, here they be! I didn't feel in the right place."

"How you did frighten me! My heart almost hopped out of my mouth!" Indeed, the shock was sufficient to keep the good woman awake the rest of the night.

Daylight the next morning dissipated their doubts, and made both feel that they had been the victims of unnecessary and foolish alarms.

"I hope ye won't git so worked up another night," said Mr. Ducklow. "It's no use. We might live in the house a hundred years, and never hear of a robber or a fire. Ye only excite yerself, and keep me awake."

"I should like to know if you didn't git excited, and rob me of my sleep jest as much as I did you!" retorted the indignant housewife.

"You began it; you fust put it into my head. But never mind; it can't be helped now. Le' 's have breakfast as soon as ye can; then I'll run over and see Reuben."

"Why not harness up, and let me ride over with ye?"

"Very well; mabby that'll be the best way.—Come, Taddy! ye must wake up! Fly round! You'll have lots o' chores to do this mornin'!"

"What's the matter 'th my breeches?" snarled Taddy. "Some plaguy thing 's stuck to 'em!"

It was Mrs. Ducklow's apron, trailing behind him at half-mast,—at sight of which, and of Taddy turning round and round to look at it, like a kitten in pursuit of her own tail, Ducklow burst into a loud laugh.

"Wal, wal, mother! you've done it! You're dressed for meetin' now, Taddy!"

"I do declare!" said Mrs. Ducklow, mortified. "I can't, for the life of me, see what there is so very funny about it!" And she hastened to cut short Taddy's trail and her husband's laughter with a pair of scissors.

After breakfast the Ducklows set off in the one-horse wagon, leaving Taddy to take care of the house during their absence. That each felt secretly uneasy about the coupon bonds cannot be denied; but, after the experiences of the night and the recriminations of the morning, they were unwilling to acknowledge their fears even to themselves, and much less to each other; so the precious papers were left hidden under the carpet.

"Safe enough, in all conscience!" said Mr. Ducklow.

"Taddy! Taddy! now mind!" Mrs. Ducklow repeated for the twentieth time. "Don't you leave the house, and don't you touch the matches nor the fire, and don't go to ransacking the rooms neither. You won't, will ye?"

"No 'm," answered Taddy, also for the twentieth time,—secretly resolved, all the while, to take advantage of their absence, and discover, if possible, what Mr. Ducklow brought home last night in his boot-leg.

The Ducklows had intended to show their zeal and affection by making Reuben an early visit. They were somewhat chagrined, therefore, to find several neighbors already arrived to pay their respects to the returned soldier. The fact that Miss Beswick was among the number did not serve greatly to heighten their spirits.

"I've as good a notion to turn round and go straight home again as ever I had to eat!" muttered Mrs. Ducklow.

"It's too late now," said her husband, advancing with a show of confidence and cordiality he did not feel. "Wal, Reuben! glad to see ye! glad to see ye! This is a joyful day I scurce ever expected to see! Why, ye don't look so sick as I thought ye would! Does he, mother?"

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Ducklow, her woman's nature, and perhaps her old motherly feelings for their adopted son, deeply moved by the sight of his changed and wasted aspect. "I'd no idee he could be so very, so very pale and thin! Had you, Sophrony?"

"I don't know what I thought," said the young wife, standing by, watching her returned volunteer with features surcharged with emotion,—deep suffering and sympathy, suffused and lighted up by love and joy. "I only know I have him now! He has come home! He shall never leave me again,—never!"

"But wasn't it terrible to see him brought home so?" whispered Mrs. Ducklow.

"Yes, it was! But, oh, I was so thankful! I felt the worst was over; and I had him again! I can nurse him now. He is no longer hundreds of miles away, among strangers, where I cannot go to him,—though I should have gone long ago, as you know, if I could have raised the means, and if it hadn't been for the children."

"I—I—Mr. Ducklow would have tried to help you to the means, and I would have taken the children, if we had thought it best for you to go," said Mrs. Ducklow. "But you see now it wasn't best, don't you?"

"Whether it was or not, I don't complain. I am too happy to-day to complain of anything. To see him home again! But I have dreamt so often that he came home, and woke up to find it was only a dream, I'm half afraid now to be as happy as I might be."

"Be as happy as you please, Sophrony!" spoke up Reuben, who had seemed to be listening to Mr. Ducklow's apologies for not coming over the night before, while he was in reality straining his ear to catch every word his wife was saying. He was dressed in his uniform and lying on a lounge, supported by pillows. "I'm just where I want to be, of all places in this world,—or the next world either, I may say; for I can't conceive of any greater heaven than I'm in now. I'm going to get well, too, spite of the doctors. Coming home is the best medicine for a fellow in my condition. Not bad to take, either! Stand here, Ruby, my boy, and let yer daddy look at ye again! To think that's my Ruby, Pa Ducklow! Why, he was a mere baby when I went away!"

"Reuben! Reuben!" entreated the young wife, leaning over him, "you are talking too much. You promised me you wouldn't, you know."

"Well, well, I won't. But when a fellow's heart is chock-full, it's hard to shut down on it sometimes. Don't look so, friends, as if ye pitied me! I a'n't to be pitied. I'll bet there isn't one of ye half as happy as I am at this minute!"

"Here's Miss Beswick, Mother Ducklow," said Sophronia. "Haven't you noticed her?"

"Oh! how do you do, Miss Beswick?" said Mrs. Ducklow, appearing surprised.

"Tryin' to keep out o' the way, and make myself useful," replied Miss Beswick, stiffly.

"I don't know what I should do without her," said Sophronia, as the tall spinster disappeared. "She took right hold and helped me last night; then she came in again the first thing this morning. 'Go to your husband,' says she to me; 'don't leave him a minute. I know he don't want ye out of his sight,—and you don't want to be out of his sight, either; so you 'tend right to him, and I'll do the work. There'll be enough folks comin' in to hender, but I've come in to help,' says she. And here she's been ever since, hard at work; for when Miss Beswick says a thing, there's no use opposing her,—that you know, Mother Ducklow."

"Yes, she likes to have her own way," said Mrs. Ducklow, with a peculiar pucker.

"It seems she called at the door last night to tell you Reuben had come."

"Called at the door! Didn't she tell you she came in and made us a visit?"

"No, indeed! Did she?"

Mrs. Ducklow concluded, that, if nothing had been said on that subject, she might as well remain silent; so she merely remarked,—

"Oh, yes, a visit,—for her. She a'n't no great hand to make long stops, ye know."

"Only when she's needed," said Sophronia; "then she never thinks of going as long as she sees anything to do. Reuben! you mustn't talk, Reuben!"

"I was saying," remarked Neighbor Jepworth, "it'll be too bad now, if you have to give up this place; but he"——

Sophronia, unseen by her husband, made anxious signs to the speaker to avoid so distressing a topic in the invalid's presence.

"We are not going to worry about that'," she hastened to say. "After we have been favored by Providence so far, and in such extraordinary ways, we think we can afford to trust still further. We have all we can think of and attend to to-day; and the future will take care of itself."

"That's right; that's the way to talk!" said Mr. Ducklow. "Providence 'll take care of ye, you may be sure!"

"I should think you might get Ditson to renew the mortgage," observed Neighbor Ferring. "He can't be hard on you, under such circumstances. And he can't be so foolish as to want the money. There's no security like real estate. If I had money to invest, I wouldn't put it into anything else."

"Nor I," said Mr. Ducklow; "nothin' like real estate!"—with an expression of profound conviction.

"What do you think of Gov'ment bonds?" asked Neighbor Jepworth.

"I don't know." Mr. Ducklow scratched his cheek and wrinkled his brow with an expression of thoughtfulness and candor. "I haven't given much attention to the subject. It may be a patriotic duty to lend to Gov'ment, if one has the funds to spare."

"Yes," said Jepworth, warming. "When we consider that every dollar we lend to Government goes to carry on the war, and put down this cursed Rebellion,——"

"And to pay off the soldiers," put in Reuben, raising himself on his elbow. "Nobody knows the sufferings of soldiers and soldiers' families on account of the Government's inability to pay them off. If that subject was felt and understood as some I know feel and understand it, I'm sure every right-minded man with fifty dollars to spare would make haste to lend it to Uncle Sam. I tell ye, I got a little excited on this subject, coming on in the cars. I heard a gentleman complaining of the Government for not paying off its creditors; he did n't say so much about the soldiers, but he thought contractors ought to have their claims settled at once. At the same time he said he had had twenty thousand dollars lying idle for two months, not knowing what to do with it, but had finally concluded to invest it in railroad stock. 'Have ye any Government stock?' said his friend. 'Not a dollar's worth,' said he; 'I'm afraid of it.' Sick as I was, I couldn't lie and hear that.' And do you know the reason,' said I, 'why Government cannot pay off its creditors? I'll tell ye,' said I. 'It is because it hasn't the money. And it hasn't the money, because such men as you, who have your thousands lying idle, refuse to lend to your country, because you are afraid. That's the extent of your patriotism: you are afraid! What do you think of us who have gone into the war, and been willing to risk everything,—not only our business and our property, but life and limb? I've ruined myself personally,' said I, 'lost my property and my health, to be of service to my country. I don't regret it,—though I should never recover, I shall not regret it. I'm a tolerably patient, philosophical sort of fellow; but I have n't patience nor philosophy enough to hear such men as you abuse the Government for not doing what it's your duty to assist it in doing.'"

"Good for you, Reuben!" exclaimed Mr. Ducklow, who really felt obliged to the young soldier for placing the previous day's investment in such a strong patriotic light. ("I've only done my duty to Gov'ment, let Miss Beswick say what she will," thought he.) "You wound him up, I guess. Fact, you state the case so well, Reuben, I believe, if I had any funds to spare, I shouldn't hesitate a minute, but go right off and invest in Gov'ment bonds."

"That might be well enough, if you did it from a sense of duty," said Neighbor Ferring, who was something of a croaker, and not much of a patriot "But as an investment, 't would be the wust ye could make."

"Ye think so?" said Mr. Ducklow, with quick alarm.

"Certainly," said Ferring. "Gov'ment 'll repudiate. It 'll have to repudiate. This enormous debt never can be paid. Your interest in gold is a temptation, jest now; but that won't be paid much longer, and then yer bonds won't be wuth any more 'n so much brown paper."

"I—I don't think so," said Mr. Ducklow, who nevertheless turned pale—Ferring gave his opinion in such a positive, oracular way. "I don't believe I should be frightened, even if I had Gov'ment securities in my hands. I wish I had; I really wish I had a good lot o' them bonds! Don't you, Jepworth?"

"They're mighty resky things to have in the house, that's one objection to 'em," replied Jepworth, thus adding breath to Ducklow's already kindled alarm.

"That's so!" said Ferring, emphatically. "I read in the papers almost every day about somebody's having his cowpon bonds stole."

"I should be more afraid of fires," observed Jepworth.

"But there's this to be considered in favor of fires," said Reuben: "If the bonds burn up, they won't have to be paid. So what is your loss is the country's gain."

"But isn't there any—isn't there any remedy?" inquired Ducklow, scarce able to sit in his chair.

"There's no risk at all, if a man subscribes for registered bonds," said Reuben. "They're like railroad stock. But if you have the coupons, you must look out for them."

"Why didn't I buy registered bonds?" said Ducklow to himself. His chair was becoming like a keg of gunpowder with a lighted fuse inserted. The familiar style of expression,—"Your bonds," "your loss," "you must look out,"—used by Ferring and Reuben, was not calculated to relieve his embarrassment. He fancied that he was suspected of owning Government securities, and that these careless phrases were based upon that surmise. He could keep his seat no longer.

"Wal, Reuben! I must be drivin' home, I s'pose. Left everything at loose ends. I was in such a hurry to see ye, and find out if there's anything I can do for ye."

"As for that," said Reuben, "I've got a trunk over in town which couldn't be brought last night. If you will have that sent for, I'll be obliged to ye."

"Sartin! sartin!" And Mr. Ducklow drove away, greatly to the relief of Mrs. Ducklow, who, listening to the alarming conversation, and remembering the bonds under the carpet, and the matches in the pantry, and Taddy's propensity to mischief, felt herself (as she afterwards confessed) "jest ready to fly."

---

WILHELM MEISTER'S APPRENTICESHIP.

It may be that I have never read to the core any one grand, representative book. How, indeed, amid the tumult and toss of our sea-sick life, is one to do so? How, again, while the presses of all literary capitals swarm with books that in one way or another demand attention, shall one do justice to books which are to be read as life is lived,—not in a minute? Only by some hardihood can one pronounce it possible. But if to any great book I have done this justice, it is to that above named.

At the first reading, "Wilhelm Meister," as a whole, was quite opaque to me, while some of the details were unpleasing, and the coolness of tone seemed to betoken coldness of heart; and it was only the observations and aphorisms, scattered like a profusion of pearls through the work, that drew me to it a second time. On a second reading, a year later, I began to see that the characters were representative of permanent classes,—that they were not only "samples to judge of," as Carlyle says, but samples by which to judge of human nature. At a third reading, after another interval, I began to get some glimpse of a total significance. And when, a year later, I took the book with me to the coast of Maine, and lived with it, in-doors and out, for a solid month, this significance came forth clearly, and made that month's reading almost equivalent to a great experience.

It is now nearly ten years, since, chiefly for my own behoof, but also not without an ultimate eye to publication, I drew up a formal statement of that which the book stood for to my mind. Time has added much to that material; for the work steadily grew upon me, and now and then extorted, as it were, notes, special dissertations, word-clutches at the meaning of the whole. And now, taking a hint from the handsome new edition, I propose to smelt this rough ore and send it forth, to fare as it may with the readers of the "Atlantic." The liberal editor allows me two papers of not far from ten pages each, in which to make this statement,—not, one sees, without some tolerant wish that a smaller space had sufficed. But even now I cast aside half my material, and double my labor in seeking brevity for the rest.

The typical history of growth in a human spirit,—"Wilhelm Meister" is that. Can you conceive of a theme more enticing? And this, too, treated by one of the master minds of the world. Why do not we shut up our shops, and leave the streets deserted, till the import of this has been exhausted? Who can afford to pass it by? Precious, indeed, must be his time, who for this has none!

The history, I said, is typical. Botanists picture for us a plant which represents the idea of all vegetable form. Goethe, who led botanists to this central treatment, here takes up growth in a human soul, and proceeds with it in a similar way. He recognizes those spiritual forces which, obscurely or visibly, work in all; he recognizes equally the conditions, inward and outward, under which growth takes place; he depicts these in their advent, their collisions, their interplay, their result.

A spiritual physiology we may name it. He gives not merely the typical form, but also the working processes, and the type of these. Nor does he merely enumerate and describe these, after the manner of science, but pictures them in their total action and final unity. Of such a work, wrought out with so much of penetration and power, one can speak coolly enough only by effort.

But the whole is not yet said. Not only does he delineate the idea of growth in man, but he assumes this as the central use and meaning of the world. "Positive philosophy" will groan. Give it the smelling-bottle, and leave it. Goethe does not deign it even a denial; without pausing to say, he sovereignly assumes, that Nature, as her supreme function, is the school-mistress of man. For the results enshrined in his spirit, suns shine, worlds wheel, and systems "move in mystic dance, not without song." Through the long toil out of chaos to orderly completion and green fertility, Nature bore in her heart one constant, inspiring hope,—at last to educate a man. To this end are all times and seasons; to this end are government, property, labor, rest, pain, and peace; the world of things and the world of events alike draw meekly near to the crescent soul, and tender to it their total result, saying,—"In thee, only in thee, do we come at length to use."

This, then, is the task at which Goethe toiled for many an earnest year. He will read through world to man, and through all man's fortunes, inward and outward, to the complete constitution and perfect architectures of his spirit. Let him succeed in that, and the word of words for our century and for many centuries is spoken. "Positive philosophy," with complacent sciolism, may still coldly asseverate that the world is a dead congeries of "laws," into whose realm man is cast to take pot-luck in the universe; but we shall know better. The worldling may still find all good and all evil in the mere fortunes of man; we shall see beyond these. The fatalist may persist in regarding limits and conditions as the all in all of life; we shall see them as a foothold for growth. Once that the spirit of man appears as the final recipient and vessel of uses, the orderly emptiness of world-law is filled with a meaning, while the wild welter of man's fortunes and the rigid fixity of his conditions find alike sufficing centre around which their orbit is drawn.

Observe, however, that we have here no piece of system-making. Goethe does not attempt a final scientific theory of existence. He pictures life from this point of view. If you can feel the verity in this picture, you may then feel the same verity in that picture which Another has painted, namely, in life itself.

Observe, once more, that even here life is depicted only from one of its two poles, and that, perhaps, the lesser. The theme is Growth, and this growth is considered as proceeding from definite elements contained in man's being, and proceeding to definite results still contained in his being. "Faust" assumes the opposite pole. Its theme is Destiny. It regards man's life as sweeping down upon him from heights above his thought, and proceeding to ends beyond his imagination. His existence appears as fashioned in essence and end by predestinating power, and the Eternal "takes the responsibility."

The artist must choose his point of view. It is impossible to paint the house at once from the inside and from the outside. "Faust" is properly an epic poem; "Wilhelm Meister" is a prose epic,—and prose, not from lack of metre, but precisely from its point of view. It treats life, not as proceeding from the bosom and moving to the ends of benign Destiny, but as contained in thought, will, character, aspiration, love, and as contingent, rather than eternally predestined, in its result. Much of religious grandeur, therefore,—to the great disgust of Novalis,—it loses; much of economic value it gains. A prose picture: yet even here we read through all else to man, and through all else in man himself to the upbuilding of his spirit. As Goethe reads life, let us see if we can read his book.

We assume, then, his point of view. Growth,—our eyes are given us that we may see this as the end, all else as material and means. Prices and kingdoms may rise or fall; we are not indifferent; but the immortal architectures of man's spirit are priceless, and here the sceptres are indeed held by divine right.

What, now,—every one will hasten to question,—what are the chief forces that induce or regulate growth? What is their typical order in appearance and combination? What is the complete result? To these questions Wilhelm Meister is Goethe's answer.

The first place in the list of producing forces is given by him to Imagination. He makes Wilhelm describe, with elaborate and lingering detail, a puppet-show which in childhood enchanted him, and whose mechanism he afterwards possessed and managed with enduring fascination. Mariana yawns in listening; the lounging novel-reader will yawn too. But under this tedious triviality, as the reader of stock-novels will deem it, lurks a meaning serious enough to entice all save those who are indeed trivial. It indicates the play-instinct in children as the first fountain of growth. Nature justifies Goethe. How grave and absorbed are children at their play! With what touching implicit faith do they assume this as something that pays for its costs! Crabtree scowls; Moneybags pooh-poohs; but Nature is too strong for them, and the children play on. It is significant. In truth, a child's faculty for play, that is, for imaginative engagement, is the prime measure of his capacity for growth. Follow his play, you who would know him,—follow it with studious, sympathetic eye; for in the range and depth of imaginative interest it displays you read the promise of his being. The child that is not fascinated by his fancies is of a meagre nature, and will come to nothing great.

Why is imagination so concerned in growth? That I call a delightful question, and could run with rejoicing to answer it; but here, not without effort, I must pass it by. There is more to be said upon it than we have space for now: some other day. Enough now that imagination is so concerned with growth; enough that Nature, by the being of every child born into the world, makes oath to the fact.

But there is a spice of devil in this angel. Of old, when the sons of God came together, Satan came with them; and still, when the primal powers of man's soul assemble to perform their grand act of worship, which is the complete upbuilding of a human spirit, Factitious Tendency, the father of mischief, is punctually at hand. So in young Wilhelm. He craves free play for the divine energies of his being. But the hard actual world resists him; instead of offering itself humbly as a vehicle for his fine imaginings, it tries to make a mere tool of him. So he flies from it in scorn. The cold, spacious emptiness of his father's life, the shrivelled content of old Werner's,—these show him the quality of real life. Fie upon reality, then! He will away, and find a concocted play-world, where all shall suit his purpose, and where he shall have nothing to do but picture forth in beauty his inward being.

He finds this, poor boy, in the stage. There no reality will exist but such as is made for his purposes. There his fine imaginations may have it all their own way. There, in heroic costume and by gas-light, his sole business shall be to express sublime sentiments in the most effective manner, while all the surroundings are strictly accessory. How fine to discover an heroic situation dumbly begging him to appear and be its speaking lay-figure!

Making play, instead of ennobling work till through that the soul can play,—that is child's play. Finding spiritual deliverance in a there, in a "got-up" situation,—that is romanticism. And it is the representative error of nobly imagining youth.

But lay-figure heroics are not heroism; and the made-up situation proves more straitening than that situation which God has made for all, namely, the real world. The stage is found to be wooden as its own boards. It gives Wilhelm for companions a crew of spiritual incapables, who have excellent appetites at others' cost, who higgle, bicker, sneak away from duty, are good for nothing, and pretend everything; while, but for his escape, it would make his own life a mere cul-de-sac with a slough at the end.

Yet he is boy-wise as well as boy-foolish. His imaginations fertilize, though they mislead him. His impulse to live over the world, rather than under it, is the vital impulse of the human soul.

But long before imagination has proceeded to the results named, another grand fructifying force has come to its aid, namely, Love. "The ever-womanly leadeth us on." Love,—it is, we may say, a chemical change in the man, like the conversion of starch into sugar, or grape-juice into wine. Full of sweetness and sweet intoxication, it belongs to the profoundest economies of Nature; and he who with his whole soul and body has once loved is another being henceforth. Acid or even putrid fermentations may set in; but what he was before he cannot be again. Goethe, therefore, follows Nature in placing this next to imagination as a producer of growth,—next in Nature and in Goethe's pages, because its alliance with imagination is so immediate and intimate. He who does not idealize does not love.

But here also is peril. Love, while filling Wilhelm's being with those precious heats which are the blind substance of all chivalry and nobility, clothes the stage with the added enchantment of Mariana's presence, and so bewitches the poor youth with still more of that "false tendency" which is his proper Satan. Moreover, by rushing headlong toward consummation, and overleaping the bounds of prudential morality, it brings both upon Mariana and himself sore retributions. Her, poor child, it hurries to the grave; him it pushes to the grave's brink, and stores even his recovered strength with anguish and a lifelong regret.

Goethe is accused of immorality. He does, indeed, depict grave errors without exclaiming over them, without holding up his hands, or playing any pantomime of horror. Moreover, a love pure in its essence, but heedless in its procedure, he persists in naming pure, though heedless. But he indicates, with a rigor that is even appalling, the retributions which pursue levity and precipitation, not to mention things worse. I have read many books which gave more moral stimulation than "Wilhelm Meister"; I have never read any which, while frankly acknowledging that Nature's blessing goes more with noble essence than with decorous form, yet indicates with equal power the iron nerve of moral law that runs through and through the world.

And now, as third performer in this real drama of growth, comes forward a redoubtable figure, the Sense of Self. His reputation, indeed, is not of the best. All, it is true, embrace him privately; but most think it decorous to disavow him in public.

On the whole, I is a very serviceable pronoun; and equally its complement in consciousness is serviceable. Welcome, Ego, to your place! The feeling of Self is the nominative, the naming case, in the syntax of consciousness. But, as, by the rules of grammar, the nominative is to be made the subject of a verb, so in the grammar of growth this self-feeling is subjected to the grand verbum, the action and total significance of one's existence.

Bring it out, then, clearly, pronounce it with due distinctness and force, that it may be clearly and definitely subjected.

Nature attends to that. She secures the nominative in her spiritual syntax. And so there is a period in earlier life when this feeling of self is getting pronounced. Very pronounced it is sometimes, a little severe in its emphasis upon delicate ears. And, indeed, if it come without adjective, without gentle qualification, almost any hearer must confess that he has known sounds more musical.

In Wilhelm it is sweetly qualified with love and imagination. It appears in luxuriant dreams of the poet's life,—of him who is not merely a pen-poet, but a living lyric, a poet in heart and soul. "And this life of true glory," cries the heart of Wilhelm, "may be mine, mine!" A gentle and magnanimous egoism, but still an egoism. But the due subjection of this self-feeling will come duly; in the qualifications that even now make it lovely the sure promise of that is contained.

Fourth in order appears a much prettier figure, namely, Philanthropy, the loving desire to serve man. It is, indeed, at first, sufficiently sweeping and ambitious. No half-way work, no boy's play here! He will regenerate the race; he will ennoble humanity, without sparing one caitiff of them all; he will establish it on some perpetual mount of transfiguration; and all by the magic of stage effect. No boy's play!

All this, too, is noble and vital. With exquisite appreciation Goethe depicts it, seeing well how vital it is in essence,—seeing, too, how vapory it is in form. Who knows better than he that to crave service, and to crave it in love, and to crave it without limit, is of the very substance of all that enriches man? To whomsoever this divine longing is foreign all the profound uses of life are foreign; he is barren as beach-sand.

Humanity, however, is not swung away from its mud-moorings so easily; probably would only go adrift and come to wreck, if it were: witness the French Revolution. Sing, bird, in the tree-tops! but when you fly, think not to make the pines fly with you! It is only by slow vital assimilations that man is ameliorated. We do our best in digging and fertilizing a little about the roots, or in bearing pollen, like bees, from flower to flower. We do our best by a little meek furtherance of Nature. And this meekness of labor is no less necessary for ourselves than for those we would serve. Ambitious world-mending is, on one side, self-flattery.

Meanwhile horrible tragedies of charlatanism, or terrible tragedies of disgust and despair await an incontinent enthusiasm for the rôle of Providence.

Wilhelm's nature has now been greatly enriched. But all that has enriched has also imperilled. Imagination, love, self-feeling, and philanthropy have stored his breast with golden wealth; but they are one and all making over that wealth to a false tendency. Long before this, however, Goethe has brought in chastening, tempering forces, by which these riches may be economized.

First, and in the person of Jarno, enters the Critical Understanding. True as steel, cold and keen as steel also, antipathetic to all sentiment, clear and decisive partly by what he has and partly by what he has not, Jarno offers with unsparing rigor to shear away Wilhelm's illusions, not seeing that in these very illusions runs an artery rich in his reddest life-blood.

Critical understanding, the disenchanter,—light without heat or color,—begins at a certain period in nobly imagining and impassioned youth to break through the cloudy glories, and shame all with its cold glare. That sudden skeptic shame! Do you know it, reader? Do you remember moments when all that had glorified life seemed suddenly to stand before you a detected impostor, a beggar playing king, and now stripped to his rags? Ah, me! and how pathetically old and wise the neophyte becomes all at once! He will be fooled no longer, he! Love, friendship, philanthropy,—he has looked under the words, and found all they covered, namely, nothing. Henceforth he will hunt sentiment out of him, as it were a wolf. Henceforth he will measure out his life by hand, and be purely—and barrenly—"reasonable."

Unhappy, could he succeed. A mere life of the understanding is just one degree better than idiocy. Sweep out imagination, and all the angels go with it. To freeze the heated geysers of the soul? It were to freeze the core of the world. Better to be nobly moonstruck than turned into a pillar of salt, even were it Attic salt. Better to be Don Quixote than a very archangel Sancho.

And yet unhappy is the nobly impassioned and imagining soul that can never discriminate, never distinguish between the central suggestions of the soul and the chance directions these may have taken. It is he of all men who needs just this, discrimination. Is there any tragedy like that of Don Quixote? A god blinded by his own light! An Olympian charging upon windmills, while a toad squats aside and grins at the spectacle! The ludicrousness is but the last sting of the tragedy. On the whole, critical understanding must have heed. The divine mania of the soul must listen even to this Sancho with his wise saws. Hard it is for the higher to become pupil of the lower, to accept and use its very contempt, and yet forbear to learn contempt of itself, stooping only to conquer. Yet even this must be. Heat is divine, but cold also is necessary. The cloudy glories of rich impassioned spirits, the vapors that float, scarlet and gold, in their heavens, must strike against the icy mountain-tops of common-sense, that the cold may condense them into fruitful rain. Hence thunder, lightning, storm, and wild commotion in the soul; but hence harvest also. The first great inward struggle is this between heat and cold; and where the heats are tropical, the collision is violent. Yet these contraries must both work into the great economies of life.

Cold—cold prudence and choice—appears first in its embodiment, Jarno, who symbolizes its secret beginnings in Wilhelm. But then and there its beginnings are only symbolized. Soon, however, disappointment bitterer than death, with sickness, remorse, horror, enters and chills him to the core. Ah, and so these clouds of glory are only raw vapor and mist, after all! The rainy season has set in. "Let's into the house," says Prudence; "let's box ourselves up nicely, and get some comfort, since that is the whole of life." No, he will not do that; he will stand out, and be drenched, and realize the full extent of his illusion. Henceforth his one employment shall be to taunt his heart with its own hopes, to put all the summer blossom and beauty of his former imaginations beside this wintry death-in-life, and shame them by the contrast.

This period in Wilhelm's life is wrought out in Goethe's picture with extreme power.

But he recovers himself, slowly. And Goethe's great knowledge of human nature is shown in this, that Wilhelm does not regain his ennobling imaginations while holding fast to the cool suggestions of prudence. No, he reverts to the former, forsaking the latter. The cold season has passed over him, and seemingly left nothing behind. With health and joy, his illusions, one by one, one and all, return. I find this true. Oscillation between opposite poles,—how long it lasts! A powerful experience comes, and all seems changed in one's being; it passes, and nothing seems changed. "Is there for me," one might cry, "only this aimless see-saw? To-day Don Quixote, to-morrow Sancho, next day Don Quixote again,—is that to go on forever?" Happy is he, provided his poverty be not his exemption, who has never wrung his hands in utter despair of finding centrality, unity, at last,—a centre where the divine passion and afflatus of the heart are reconciled with the hard-eyed perceptions of common-sense.

But life is not a mere pendulum. Nature works to her ends. There is oscillation, but also growth. And so, though Wilhelm recurs to his illusions, and even embodies them by going upon the stage, the seeds of discriminating judgment are sown in his heart, and are already germinating.

Travel, with observation of men, and the attempt to work with them, sobers him further. He begins to recognize limits and conditions, and to do so without surrendering his hopes and happy dreams. He perceives, little by little, that there are some men who can give and receive help, and some who can do neither,—some with whom one can nobly coöperate, others whose hands approach his own only to obstruct and entangle. He sees that he himself is limited, and that possibly the world might not fare so much better in his hands than in those of its Maker. It dawns upon him, that, on the whole, he is not here to make worlds, but to work in a limited sphere and for limited results. And yet his hopes and imaginations are not put to shame; for he feels, that, even amid these iron limits of labor and effect, a result of unlimited, absolute worth is also getting wrought.

And now, in this harmonizing of heat and cold into one tempered economy, in this recognition of limits and conditions, without surrender of inspiring imagination and hope, he approaches the term of his wandering, and nears home.

This consummation is hastened in what may seem a singular way,—by reading Shakspeare. These matchless pictures of real life give him, as life itself had never given, the feeling of real. The sentiment of Reality, for the first time, awakens in power. It is much, almost infinitely much, he perceives, to be just this, real. The smallest reality—so with some astonishment he discovers—affords more scope to imagination itself than any conceivable magnificence of make-belief. Real,—rooted in eternal Nature, with a pedigree older than the stars! Is not any pebble, if we consider its advent into existence and its cosmic relations, enough, not only to occupy, but to beggar imagination? Existence,—is not that the one inexhaustible fact? He feels it so, and in that feeling the contending opposites of his being come to sudden reconciliation.

Reality,—the hard, cold, critical understanding has done no worse than to insist upon that. But it has insisted upon that after its own cold fashion, as a mere frozen surface, giving no warm and fruitful hospitality to the divine seeds of hope, love, and imagination. On the other hand, the angels of Wilhelm's heart have fled away from reality because they accepted this representation. Suddenly they find this their true home. Now, then, they will sow in the clouds no longer. Reality, beneath its hard, limited outside, opens to them its divine bosom, and says, "Ye also are real: sow here."

And now the boards feel thin under Wilhelm's feet. Enough of these. Enough of masquerading. Enough of make-belief heroics: belief, accepting limits and conditions, that on them and out of them it may build the spiritual architectures of life, is heroism. Enough of play-acting: work is the true play. Moral imagination has found its home and its freedom in the real; and therewith the first epoch of his life rounds into completion, passes over its virtue to another, and in his life there is an ending and a beginning.

In what consists this complete beginning? In this, that he now gets his eye on himself in a wholly new way. He sees his being as a spiritual whole, a complete design in the thought of Eternal Nature, which design he is religiously bound to divine and serve. To serve Creative Reality even in the regards he bestows upon himself,—in coming to that aim and action, he, for the first time, beholds his being with a pure eye. "To say it in a word," he writes to Werner, "the cultivation of my individual self, here as I am, has, from my youth upward, been constantly, though dimly, my wish and purpose. The same intention I still cherish, but the means of realizing it are now grown somewhat clearer."[A]

"Selfish" is that? It is not the goal, but it is not selfish. Only as the sense of self is subordinated, only as it not only resigns dominion, but becomes a loyal steward in the household of the soul, happy in obedience, can one arrive at real self-culture,—that is, accept his being at the hands of Formative Nature as a design to be served. While self-feeling holds one in close grip, he can never so much as see his being in this pure, objective way, any more than he can look back into his own eyes. The very act of receiving it as the farm which he is to till,—as a spiritual whole, to which all parts, all partial acts and interests, and the sense of self among them, are to be subordinated and made serviceable,—this implies not merely a liberation from egoism, but much more, namely, utilization of it. Real self-culture consists in the happy and obedient service of uses in one's own spirit. The uses of the world, we have said, are enshrined in the spirit of man; when one can freely and faithfully serve these, his life as a whole human being has begun.

Self-culture, in the Goethean sense, is, then, a much nobler and more religious affair than the popular notion makes it. But even this, I repeat, is, in Goethe's view, simply the complete beginning. True, the usual notion is different. Some, that suppose themselves his followers, rest finally in self-culture; many, who think this the goal of Goethe's own life, inveigh against him accordingly. Did men, however, always wait to understand ere condemning, much virtuous indignation would never come to use. Precious is virtuous indignation; nevertheless, here there is for it no suitable occasion. Wilhelm goes on toward spiritual ripeness; we follow his advance.

The next step is symbolized by that charming episode, "Confessions of a Fair Saint," whose relation to the whole work many critics profess themselves unable to see,—indeed, I know not whether any critic has seen clearly what, nevertheless, is clearly there to be seen. Religion is flowering in Wilhelm's soul. He rests softly in Absolute Reality, in That which eternally, infinitely is. It is a deepening to infinitude of his feeling for the Real. From superficial, he comes to divine Reality, and finds this not only sufficing, but inspiring, not only commanding obedience, but blessing, exalting, crowning, making it royal.

This is not directly shown in Wilhelm himself, but symbolized by his interest in the narrative of another. In Wilhelm it is hidden,—a-flowering, but secret. The very design is to suggest that his religion does not come out of him, and become formal, but remains in him, in vital, creative intimacy with his entire being. For it is one point of Goethe's art to hint at secret processes in the soul by some external representative,—and the appearance of principal personages in this work is always connected with some suggestion of that kind. They stand for what they are in themselves; they have also their direct influence on Wilhelm; and they also symbolize that which cannot be directly shown in his inward growth.

Wilhelm comes to his knees before Absolute Reality; kneeling, he accepts his being. Self-culture henceforth has got its baptism, freedom its law and its blessing of obedience, which leave it freedom still.

Has the reader some misgiving that I foist this interpretation upon the book? There is not, indeed, a direct syllable to this effect. What assurance, then, that this interpretation is not gratuitous?

This, first,—the "Confessions" are there; hence are related to the import of the whole. But perhaps the reader thinks, with the redoubtable Mr. Lewes, that the work is not a whole at all, but a piece of patchwork. If so, this reason will not weigh with him.

But my interpretation is conclusively affirmed in another way. The Wilhelm of the seventh book is no longer the Wilhelm of the fifth. We leave him on one side this episode, we find him on the other, and he is not the same man. He has suffered a sea-change; for his keel has been wetted in the waters of Eternity. The Abbé recognizes him with difficulty.

It is the old secret. No man can look on Absolute Reality, and live in the antecedent quality of his life. He is a new man henceforth,—consumed and created.

And now we come to the consummate act and epoch of his life. He has found himself; he is now to give himself, and, in giving, is to find himself anew. He is to lose and find himself in social uses. In this sacred act of social immersion, by which, since it can now be done sanely, he is to be, not dissipated, but divinely assured to himself, his spirit and Goethe's work at last rest.

The key-note to this part of the work is struck in the cool tones of Jarno. "It is right," he says, "that a man, when he first enters upon life, should think highly of himself, should determine to attain many high distinctions, should endeavor to make all things possible; but when his education has proceeded to a certain pitch, it is advantageous for him that he learn to lose himself among a mass of men, that he learn to live for the sake of others, and to forget himself in an activity prescribed by duty."

Wilhelm approaches this higher act by degrees.

First, by an exalted and matured love of woman. It is not here a fume and sweet intoxication in the blood, but a true passion of the soul, a profound yearning to ally his spirit. By an inward necessity, he must give himself to one other, and from that other receive himself again, made sacred with Nature's baptism. The need of this reciprocation is stronger with him than even his election of a particular person with whom to establish it. So, when it becomes impossible for Theresa to accept his hand, he passes soon to Natalia, to whom, however, his attraction is subtler and older.

On this follows the deep self-devotion of fatherhood. The longing to bestow his soul pushes beyond the love of woman, and looks for another object, where the giving is more simple, because the visible return is less. But here again he does not wish to give himself officiously,—to thrust himself unbidden into the household of another life; he would do it in simple obedience to Nature. Therefore, when of those who seem to know everything he can ask one question and no more, there is just one question which his very soul asks:—"Is Felix indeed my son?"

"Hail to thee for the question!" cries the providential Abbé. "Hail to thee, my son! Thy apprenticeship is ended. Nature pronounces thee free."

Yes, when he craves of Nature, not aggrandizement, but a duty,—when he entreats her commands to bestow of all that is deepest and dearest in his spirit on another, and yet to do it so in simple response to her behest that in all he shall give only what is due,—then he is free. No self-flattery here; no feeling that he is performing some wonderful piece of self-sacrifice, which puts the universe under obligations to him. He would give all, but give where he owes all, not only in obedience, but in meek thankfulness.

This done, he can go farther. Established indestructibly in the unity of his own being, established also in these devout relationships, he is prepared to enter into ampler relations, carrying into these the same obedience to Nature, the same sense of giving only what is due. Accordingly, he passes into noble mutualities of coöperation, service, and love with his equals, with those superior to himself, and with those to whom he is superior, not defrauded of his being, but secured in its possession, by that self-surrender.

Not at a leap, indeed, does he attain to this dignity of life. Causeless suspicions infest him; again and again he snatches himself back, and retreats into spiritual isolation. Like an uncertain swimmer, who, wading into deep water, draws back in sudden alarm as his feet begin to lift themselves buoyantly from the sands, so he is smitten with jealous fear, and hastens to regain his former foothold, just when his immersion in social use and fellowship was becoming complete. But ever as he grows surer of himself, and ever as he rests more trustfully in eternal Reality, he becomes more capable of yielding trust to those who deserve it, and yielding himself to those unto whom he rightly belongs.

And so lost and found, so self-given and self-contained, so abandoned to the high uses of life, and by that very act saved, by that act secured to himself in spiritual wholeness, Goethe leaves him at the close of the Apprenticeship: for of the Travels, which is another mine of suggestion, I do not speak here.

To sum all. The whole work climbs steadily to this consummate act of self-surrender without self-dissipation, without self-flattery, without officiousness, and without reserve. But in order that one may give himself nobly, he must nobly have himself to give. To this end there are prerequisites. First, fructification, a rich development of heats and fruitful powers; and of the nature and order of these Goethe aims to give account. Secondly, a due tempering of these by the cold, faithful severities of understanding and experience. Third, as resulting, a high repose in Reality,—high, because one reposes there, not in base compromise with it or with himself, but in hope, in duty, in imagining heroism of heart. Fourthly and finally, comes a relation to one's own being, at once utterly religious and utterly sane, whereby one commands himself in obedience to the total law and uses of his spirit. Having achieved this, one may go forward, through further experience and deeper life, to that act of religious and sane self-bestowal, wherein he first becomes, in the full, majestic sense, a man.