The Project Gutenberg eBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862, by Various

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. X—SEPTEMBER, 1862.—NO. LIX.

DAVID GAUNT.

Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist.—FAUST

PART I.

What kind of sword, do you think, was that which old Christian had in that famous fight of his with Apollyon, long ago? He cut the fiend to the marrow with it, you remember, at last; though the battle went hardly with him, too, for a time. Some of his blood, Banyan says, is on the stones of the valley to this day. That is a vague record of the combat between the man and the dragon in that strange little valley, with its perpetual evening twilight and calm, its meadows crusted with lilies, its herd-boy with his quiet song, close upon the precincts of hell. It fades back, the valley and the battle, dim enough, from the sober freshness of this summer morning. Look out of the window here, at the hubbub of the early streets, the freckled children racing past to school, the dewy shimmer of yonder willows in the sunlight, like drifts of pale green vapor. Where is Apollyon? does he put himself into flesh and blood, as then, nowadays? And the sword which Christian used, like a man, in his deed of derring-do?

Reading the quaint history, just now, I have a mind to tell you a modern story. It is not long: only how, a few months ago, a poor itinerant, and a young girl, (like these going by with baskets on their arms,) who lived up in these Virginia hills, met Evil in their lives, and how it fared with them: how they thought that they were in the Valley of Humiliation, that they were Christian, and Rebellion and Infidelity Apollyon; the different ways they chose to combat him; the weapons they used. I can tell you that; but you do not know—do you?—what kind of sword old Christian used, or where it is, or whether its edge is rusted.

I must not stop to ask more, for these war-days are short, and the story might be cold before you heard it.

* * * * *

A brick house, burrowed into the side of a hill, with red gleams of light winking out of the windows in a jolly way into the winter's night: wishing, one might fancy, to cheer up the hearts of the freezing stables and barn and hen-house that snuggled about the square yard, trying to keep warm. The broad-backed old hill (Scofield's Hill, a famous place for papaws in summer) guards them tolerably well; but then, house and barn and hill lie up among the snowy peaks of the Virginian Alleghanies, and you know how they would chill and awe the air. People away down yonder in the river-bottoms see these peaks dim and far-shining, as though they cut through thick night; but we, up among them here, find the night wide, filled with a pale starlight that has softened for itself out of the darkness overhead a great space up towards heaven.

The snow lay deep, on this night of which I tell you,—a night somewhere near the first of January in this year. Two old men, a white and a black, who were rooting about the farm-yard from stable to fodder-rack, waded through deep drifts of it.

"Tell yer, Mars' Joe," said the negro, banging the stable-door, "dat hoss ort n't ter risk um's bones dis night. Ef yer go ter de Yankee meetin', Coly kern't tote yer."

"Well, well, Uncle Bone, that's enough," said old Scofield testily, looking through the stall-window at the horse, with a face anxious enough to show that the dangers of foundering for Coly and for the Union were of about equal importance in his mind.

A heavily built old fellow, big-jointed, dull-eyed, with a short, black pipe in his mouth, going about peering into sheds and out-houses,—the same routine he and Bone had gone through every night for thirty years,—joking, snarling, cursing, alternately. The cramped old routine, dogged, if you choose to call it so, was enough for him: you could tell that by a glance at his earnest, stolid face; you could see that it need not take Prospero's Ariel forty minutes to put a girdle about this man's world: ten would do it, tie up the farm, and the dead and live Scofields, and the Democratic party, with an ideal reverence for "Firginya" under all. As for the Otherwhere, outside of Virginia, he heeded it as much as a Hindoo does the turtle on which the earth rests. For which you shall not sneer at Joe Scofield, or the Pagan. How wide is your own "sacred soil"?—the creed, government, bit of truth, other human heart, self, perhaps, to which your soul roots itself vitally,—like a cuttle-fish sucking to an inch of rock,—and drifts out palsied feelers of recognition into the ocean of God's universe, just as languid as the aforesaid Hindoo's hold upon the Kalpas of emptiness underneath the turtle?

Joe Scofield sowed the fields and truck-patch,—sold the crops down in Wheeling; every year he got some little, hardly earned snugness for the house (he and Bone had been born in it, their grandfathers had lived there together). Bone was his slave; of course, they thought, how should it be otherwise? The old man's daughter was Dode Scofield; his negro was Bone Scofield, in degree. Joe went to the Methodist church on Sundays; he hurrahed for the Democratic candidate: it was a necessity for Whigs to be defeated; it was a necessity for Papists to go to hell. He had a tight grip on these truths, which were born, one might say, with his blood; his life grew out of them. So much of the world was certain,—but outside? It was rather vague there: Yankeedom was a mean-soiled country, whence came clocks, teachers, peddlers, and infidelity; and the English,—it was an American's birthright to jeer at the English.

We call this a narrow life, prate in the North of our sympathy with the universal man, don't we? And so we extend a stomachic greeting to our Spanish brother that sends us wine, and a bow from our organ of ideality to Italy for beauty incarnate in Art,—see the Georgian slaveholder only through the eyes of the cowed negro at his feet, and give a dime on Sunday to send the gospel to the heathen, who will burn forever, we think, if it never is preached to them. What of your sympathy with the universal man, when I tell you Scofield was a Rebel?

His syllogisms on this point were clear, to himself. For slavery to exist in a country where free government was put on trial was a tangible lie, that had worked a moral divorce between North and South. Slavery was the vital breath of the South; if she chose to go out and keep it, had not freemen the right to choose their own government? To bring her back by carnage was simply the old game of regal tyranny on republican cards. So his head settled it: as for his heart,—his neighbors' houses were in ashes, burned by the Yankees; his son lay dead at Manassas. He died to keep them back, didn't he? "Geordy boy," he used to call him,—worth a dozen puling girls: since he died, the old man had never named his name. Scofield was a Rebel in every bitter drop of his heart's blood.

He hurried to the house to prepare to go to the Union meeting. He had a reason for going. The Federal troops held Romney then, a neighboring village, and he knew many of the officers would be at this meeting. There was a party of Confederates in Blue's Gap, a mountain-fastness near by, and Scofield had heard a rumor that the Unionists would attack them to-morrow morning: he meant to try and find out the truth of it, so as to give the boys warning to be ready, and, maybe, lend them a helping hand. Only for Dode's sake, he would have been in the army long ago.

He stopped on the porch to clean his shoes, for the floor was newly scrubbed, and Miss Scofield was a tidy housekeeper, and had, besides, a temper as hot and ready to light as her father's pipe. The old man stopped now, half chuckling, peeping in at the window to see if all was clear within. But you must not think for this that Dode's temper was the bugbear of the house,—though the girl herself thought it was, and shed some of the bitterest tears of her life over it. Just a feverish blaze in the blood, caught from some old dead grandfather, that burst out now and then.

Dode, not being a genius, could not christen it morbid sensibility; but as she had a childish fashion of tracing things to commonplace causes, whenever she felt her face grow hot easily, or her throat choke up as men's do when they swear, she concluded that her liver was inactive, and her soul was tired of sitting at her Master's feet, like Mary. So she used to take longer walks before breakfast, and cry sharply, incessantly, in her heart, as the man did who was tainted with leprosy, "Lord, help me!" And the Lord always did help her.

My story is of Dode; so I must tell you that these passion-fits were the only events of her life. For the rest, she washed and sewed and ironed. If her heart and brain needed more than this, she was cheerful in spite of their hunger. Almost all of God's favorites among women, before their life-work is given them, pass through such hunger,—seasons of dull, hot inaction, fierce struggles to tame and bind to some unfitting work the power within. Generally, they are tried thus in their youth,—just as the old aspirants for knighthood were condemned to a night of solitude and prayer before the day of action. This girl was going through her probation with manly-souled bravery.

She came out on the porch now, to help her father on with his coat, and to tie his spatterdashes. You could not see her in the dark, of course; but you would not wonder, if you felt her hand, or heard her speak, that the old man liked to touch her, as everybody did,—spoke to her gently: her own voice, did I say? was so earnest and rich,—hinted at unsounded depths of love and comfort, such as utter themselves in some unfashionable women's voices and eyes. Theodora, or -dosia, or some such heavy name, had been hung on her when she was born,—nobody remembered what: people always called her Dode, so as to bring her closer, as it were, and to fancy themselves akin to her.

Bone, going in, had left the door ajar, and the red firelight shone out brightly on her, where she was stooping. Nature had given her a body white, strong, and womanly,—broad, soft shoulders, for instance, hands slight and nervous, dark, slow eyes. The Devil never would have had the courage to tempt Eve, if she had looked at him with eyes as tender and honest as Dode Scofield's.

Yet, although she had so many friends, she impressed you as being a shy home-woman. That was the reason her father did not offer to take her to the meeting, though half the women in the neighborhood would be there.

"She a'n't smart, my Dode," he used to say,—"'s got no public sperrit."

He said as much to young Gaunt, the Methodist preacher, that very day, knowing that he thought of the girl as a wife, and wishing to be honest as to her weaknesses and heresies. For Dode, being the only creature in the United States who thought she came into the world to learn and not to teach, had an odd habit of trying to pick the good lesson out of everybody: the Yankees, the Rebels, the Devil himself, she thought, must have some purpose of good, if she could only get at it. God's creatures alike. She durst not bring against the foul fiend himself a "railing accusation," being as timid in judging evil as were her Master and the archangel Michael. An old-fashioned timidity, of course: people thought Dode a time-server, or "a bit daft."

"She don't take sides sharp in this war," her father said to Gaunt, "my little girl; 'n fact, she isn't keen till put her soul intill anythin' but lovin'. She's a pore Democrat, David, an' not a strong Methody,—allays got somethin' till say fur t' other side, Papishers an' all. An' she gets religion quiet. But it's the real thing,"—watching his hearer's face with an angry suspicion. "It's out of a clean well, David, I say!"

"I hope so, Brother Scofield,"—doubtfully, shaking his head.

The conversation had taken place just after dinner. Scofield looked upon Gaunt as one of the saints upon earth, but he "danged him" after that once or twice to himself for doubting the girl; and when Bone, who had heard it, "guessed Mist' Dode 'd never fling herself away on sich whinin' pore-white trash," his master said nothing in reproof.

He rumpled her hair fondly, as she stood by him now on the porch.

"David Gaunt was in the house,—he had been there all the evening," she said,—a worried heat on her face. "Should not she call him to go to the meeting?"

"Jest as you please, Dode; jest as you please."

She should not be vexed. And yet—What if Gaunt did not quite appreciate his girl, see how deep-hearted she was, how heartsome a thing to look at even when she was asleep? He loved her, David did, as well as so holy a man could love anything carnal. And it would be better, if Dode were married; a chance shot might take him off any day, and then—what? She didn't know enough to teach; the farm was mortgaged; and she had no other lovers. She was cold-blooded in that sort of liking,—did not attract the men: thinking, with the scorn coarse-grained men have for reticent-hearted women, what a contrast she was to her mother. She was the right sort,—full-lipped, and a cooing voice for everybody, and such winning blue eyes! But, after all, Dode was the kind of woman to anchor to; it was "Get out of my way!" with her mother, as with all milky, blue-eyed women.

The old man fidgeted, lingered, stuffing "old Lynchburg" into his pipe, (his face was dyed saffron, and smelt of tobacco,) glad to feel, when Dode tied his fur cap, how quick and loving for him her fingers were, and that he always had deserved they should be so. He wished the child had some other protector to turn to than he, these war-times,—thinking uneasily of the probable fight at Blue's Gap, though of course he knew he never was born to be killed by a Yankee bullet. He wished she could fancy Gaunt; but if she didn't,—that was enough.

Just then Gaunt came out of the room on to the porch, and began loitering, in an uncertain way, up and down. A lean figure, with an irresolute step: the baggy clothes hung on his lank limbs were butternut-dyed, and patched besides: a Methodist itinerant in the mountains,—you know all that means? There was nothing irresolute or shabby in Gaunt's voice, however, as he greeted the old man,—clear, thin, nervous. Scofield looked at him wistfully.

"Dunnot drive David off, Dody," he whispered; "I think he's summat on his mind. What d'ye think's his last whimsey? Told me he's goin' off in the mornin',—Lord knows where, nor for how long. Dody, d'ye think?—he'll be wantin' till come back for company, belike? Well, he's one o' th' Lord's own, ef he is a bit cranky."

An odd tenderness came into the man's jaded old face. Whatever trust in God had got into his narrow heart among its bigotry, gross likings and dislikings, had come there through the agency of this David Gaunt. He felt as if he only had come into the secret place where his Maker and himself stood face to face; thought of him, therefore, with a reverence whose roots dug deep down below his coarseness, into his uncouth gropings after God. Outside of this,—Gaunt had come to the mountains years before, penniless, untaught, ragged, intent only on the gospel, which he preached with a keen, breathless fervor. Scofield had given him a home, clothed him, felt for him after that the condescending, curious affection which a rough barn-yard hen might feel for its adopted poult, not yet sure if it will turn out an eagle or a silly gull. It was a strange affinity between the lank-limbed, cloudy-brained enthusiast at one end of the porch and the shallow-eyed, tobacco-chewing old Scofield at the other,—but a real affinity, striking something deeper in their natures than blood-kinship. Whether Dode shared in it was doubtful; she echoed the "Poor David" in just the voice with which high-blooded women pity a weak man. Her father saw it. He had better not tell her his fancy to-night about Gaunt wishing her to be his wife.

He hallooed to him, bidding him "hap up an' come along till see what the Yankees were about.—Go in, Dode,—you sha'n't be worrit, child."

Gaunt came closer, fastening his thin coat. A lean face, sharpened by other conflicts than disease,—poetic, lonesome eyes, not manly.

"I am going," he said, looking at the girl. All the pain and struggle of years came up in that look. She knew where he was going: did she care? he thought She knew,—he had told her, not an hour since, that he meant to lay down the Bible, and bring the kingdom of Jesus nearer in another fashion: he was going to enlist in the Federal army. It was God's cause, holy: through its success the golden year of the world would begin on earth. Gaunt took up his sword, with his eye looking awe-struck straight to God. The pillar of cloud, he thought, moved, as in the old time, before the army of freedom. She knew that when he did this, for truth's sake, he put a gulf between himself and her forever. Did she care? Did she? Would she let him go, and make no sign?

"Be quick, Gaunt," said Scofield, impatiently. "Bone hearn tell that Dougl's Palmer was in Romney to-night. He'll be down at Blue's Gap, I reckon. He's captain now in the Lincolnite army,—one of the hottest of the hell-hounds,—he is! Ef he comes to the house here, as he'll likely do, I don't want till meet him."

Gaunt stood silent.

"He was Geordy's friend, father," said the girl, gulping back something in her throat.

"Geordy? Yes. I know. It's that that hurts me," he muttered, uncertainly. "Him an' Dougl's was like brothers once, they was!"

He coughed, lit his pipe, looking in the girl's face for a long time, anxiously, as if to find a likeness in it to some other face he never should see again. He often had done this lately. At last, stooping, he kissed her mouth passionately, and shuffled down the hill, trying to whistle as be went. Kissing, through her, the boy who lay dead at Manassas: she knew that. She leaned on the railing, looking after him until a bend in the road took him out of sight. Then she turned into the house, with no thought to spare for the man watching her all this while with hungry eyes. The moon, drifting from behind a cloud, threw a sharp light on her figure, as she stood in the door-way.

"Dode!" he said. "Good bye, Dode!"

She shook hands, saying nothing,—then went in, and shut the door.

Gaunt turned away, and hurried down the hill, his heart throbbing and aching against his bony side with the breathless pain which women, and such men as he, know. Her hand was cold, as she gave it to him; some pain had chilled her blood: was it because she bade him good-bye forever, then? Was it? He knew it was not: his instincts were keen as those of the old Pythoness, who read the hearts of men and nations by surface-trifles. Gaunt joined the old man, and began talking loosely and vaguely, as was his wont,—of the bad road, and the snow-water oozing through his boots,—not knowing what he said. She did not care; he would not cheat himself: when he told her to-night what he meant to do, she heard it with a cold, passive disapproval,—with that steely look in her dark eyes that shut him out from her. "You are sincere, I see; but you are not true to yourself or to God": that was all she said. She would have said the same, if he had gone with her brother. It was a sudden stab, but he forgave her: how could she know that God Himself had laid this blood-work on him, or the deathly fight his soul had waged against it? She did not know,—nor care. Who did?

The man plodded doggedly through the melting snow, with a keener sense of the cold biting through his threadbare waistcoat, of the solitude and wrong that life had given him,—his childish eyes turning to the gray depth of night, almost fierce in their questioning,—thinking what a failure his life had been. Thirty-five years of struggle with poverty and temptation! Ever since that day in the blacksmith's shop in Norfolk, when he had heard the call of the Lord to go and preach His word, had he not striven to choke down his carnal nature,—to shut his eyes to all beauty and love,—to unmake himself, by self-denial, voluntary pain? Of what use was it? To-night his whole nature rebelled against this carnage before him,—his duty; scorned it as brutal; cried out for a life as peaceful and meek as that of Jesus, (as if that were not an absurdity in a time like this,) for happiness, for this woman's love; demanded it, as though these things were its right!

The man had a genial, childish temperament, given to woo and bind him, in a thousand simple, silly ways, into a likeness of that Love that holds the world, and that gave man no higher hero-model than a trustful, happy child. It was the birthright of this haggard wretch going down the hill, to receive quick messages from God through every voice of the world,—to understand them, as few men did, by his poet's soul,—through love, or color, or music, or keen healthy pain. Very many openings for him to know God through the mask of matter. He had shut them; being a Calvinist, and a dyspeptic, (Dyspepsia is twin-tempter with Satan, you know,) sold his God-given birthright, like Esau, for a hungry, bitter mess of man's doctrine. He came to loathe the world, the abode of sin; loathed himself, the chief of sinners; mapped out a heaven in some corner of the universe, where he and the souls of his persuasion, panting with the terror of being scarcely saved, should find refuge. The God he made out of his own bigoted and sour idea, and foisted on himself and his hearers as Jesus, would not be as merciful in the Judgment as Gaunt himself would like to be,—far from it. So He did not satisfy him. Sometimes, thinking of the pure instincts thwarted in every heart,—of the noble traits in damned souls, sent hellwards by birth or barred into temptation by society, a vision flashed before him of some scheme of the universe where all matter and mind were rising, slowly, through the ages, to eternal life. "Even so in Christ should all be made alive." All matter, all mind, rising in degrees towards the Good? made order, infused by God? And God was Love. Why not trust this Love to underlie even these social riddles, then? He thrust out the Devil's whisper, barred the elect into their narrow heaven, and tried to be content.

Douglas Palmer used to say that all Gaunt needed to make him a sound Christian was education and fresh meat. Gaunt forgave it as a worldly scoff. And Palmer, just always, thought, that, if Christ was just, He would remember it was not altogether Gaunt's fault, nor that of other bigots, if they had not education nor spiritual fresh meat. Creeds are not always "good providers."

The two men had a two-miles' walk before them. They talked little, as they went. Gaunt had not told the old man that he was going into the Northern army: how could he? George's dead face was between them, whenever he thought of it. Still, Scofield was suspicious as to Gaunt's politics: he never talked to him on the subject, therefore, and to-night did not tell him of his intention to go over to Blue's Gap to warn the boys, and, if they were outnumbered, to stay and take his luck with them. He nor Dode never told Gaunt a secret: the man's brain was as leaky as a sponge.

"He don't take enough account o' honor, an' the like, but it's for tryin' till keep his soul right," he used to say, excusingly, to Dode. "That's it! He minds me o' th' man that lived up on th' pillar, prayin'."

"The Lord never made people to live on pillars," Dode said.

The old man looked askance at Gaunt's worn face, as he trotted along beside him, thinking how pure it was. What had he to do with this foul slough, we were all mired in? What if the Yankees did come, like incarnate devils, to thieve and burn and kill? This man would say "that ye resist not evil." He lived back there, pure and meek, with Jesus, in the old time. He would not dare to tell him he meant to fight with the boys in the Gap before morning. He wished he stood as near to Christ as this young man had got; he wished to God this revenge and bloodthirstiness were out of him; sometimes he felt as if a devil possessed him, since George died. The old fellow choked down a groan in the whiffs of his pipe.

Was the young man back there, in the old time, following the Nazarene? The work of blood Scofield was taking up for the moment, he took up, grappled with, tried to put his strength into. Doing this, his true life lay drained, loathsome, and bare. For the rest, he wished Dode had cared,—only a little. If one lay stabbed on some of these hills, it would be hard to think nobody cared: thinking of the old mother he had buried, years before. Yet Dode suffered: the man was generous to his heart's core,—forgot his own want in pity for her. What could it have been that pained her, as he came away? Her father had spoken of Palmer. That? His ruled heart leaped with a savage, healthy throb of jealousy.

Something he saw that moment made him stop short. The road led straight through the snow-covered hills to the church where the meeting was to be held. Only one man was in sight, coming towards them, on horseback. A sudden gleam of light showed him to them clearly. A small, middle-aged man, lithe, muscular, with fair hair, dressed in some shaggy dark uniform and a felt hat. Scofield stopped.

"It's Palmer!" he said, with an oath that sounded like a cry.

The sight of the man brought George before him, living enough to wring his heart He knocked a log off the worm-fence, and stepped over into the field.

"I'm goin', David. To think o' him turnin' traitor to Old Virginia! I'll not bide here till meet him."

"Brother!" said Gaunt, reprovingly.

"Don't hold me, Gaunt! Do you want me till curse my boy's old chum?"—his voice hoarse, choking.

"He is George's friend still"—

"I know, Gaunt, I know. God forgi' me! But—let me go, I say!"

He broke away, and went across the field.

Gaunt waited, watching the man coming slowly towards him. Could it be he whom Dode loved,—this Palmer? A doubter? an infidel? He had told her this to-day. A mere flesh-and-brain machine, made for the world, and no uses in him for heaven!

Poor Gaunt! no wonder he eyed the man with a spiteful hatred, as he waited for him, leaning against the fence. With his subtle Gallic brain, his physical spasms of languor and energy, his keen instincts that uttered themselves to the last syllable always, heedless of all decencies of custom, no wonder that the man with every feminine, unable nerve in his body rebelled against this Palmer. It was as natural as for a delicate animal to rebel against and hate and submit to man. Palmer's very horse, he thought, had caught the spirit of its master, and put down its hoofs with calm assurance of power.

Coming up at last, Gaunt listened sullenly, while the other spoke in a quiet, hearty fashion.

"They tell me you are to be one of us to-night," Palmer said, cordially. "Dyke showed me your name on the enlistment-roll: your motto after it, was it? 'For God and my right.' That's the gist of the whole matter, David, I think, eh?"

"Yes, I'm right. I think I am. God knows I do!"—his vague eyes wandering off, playing with the horse's mane uncertainly.

Palmer read his face keenly.

"Of course you are," he said, speaking gently as he would to a woman. "I'll find a place and work for you before morning."

"So soon, Palmer?"

"Don't look at the blood and foulness of the war, boy! Keep the cause in view, every moment. We secure the right of self-government for all ages: think of that! 'God,'—His cause, you know?—and 'your right,' Haven't you warrant to take life to defend your right—from the Christ you believe in? Eh?"

"No. But I know"—Gaunt held his hand to his forehead as if it ached—"we have to come to brute force at last to conquer the right. Christianity is not enough. I've reasoned it over, and"—

"Yet you look troubled. Well, we'll talk it over again. You've worked your brain too hard to be clear about anything just now,"—looking down on him with the questioning pity of a surgeon examining a cancer. "I must go on now, David. I'll meet you at the church in an hour."

"You are going to the house, Palmer?"

"Yes. Good night."

Gaunt drew back his hand, glancing at the cold, tranquil face, the mild blue eyes.

"Good night,"—following him with his eyes as he rode away.

An Anglo-Saxon, with every birthmark of that slow, inflexible race. He would make love philosophically, Gaunt sneered. A made man. His thoughts and soul, inscrutable as they were, were as much the accretion of generations of culture and reserve as was the chalk in his bones or the glowless courage in his slow blood. It was like coming in contact with summer water to talk to him; but underneath was—what? Did Dode know? Had he taken her in, and showed her his unread heart? Dode?

How stinging cold it was!—looking up drearily into the drifting heaps of gray. What a wretched, paltry balk the world was! What a noble part he played in it!—taking out his pistol. Well, he could pull a trigger, and let out some other sinner's life; that was all the work God thought he was fit for. Thinking of Dode all the time. He knew her! He could have summered her in love, if she would but have been passive and happy! He asked no more of her than that. Poor, silent, passionate Dode! No one knew her as he knew her! What were that man's cold blue eyes telling her now at the house? It mattered nothing to him.

He went across the cornfield to the church, his thin coat flapping in the wind, looking at his rusty pistol with a shudder.

* * * * *

Dode shut the door. Outside lay the winter's night, snow, death, the war. She shivered, shut them out. None of her nerves enjoyed pain, as some women's do. Inside,—you call it cheap and mean, this room? Yet her father called it Dode's snuggery; he thought no little nest in the world was so clean and warm. He never forgot to leave his pipe outside, (though she coaxed him not to do it,) for fear of "silin' the air." Every evening he came in after he had put on his green dressing-gown and slippers, and she read the paper to him. It was quite a different hour of the day from all of the rest: sitting, looking stealthily around while she read, delighted to see how cozy he had made his little girl,—how pure the pearl-stained walls were, how white the matting. He never went down to Wheeling with the crops without bringing something back for the room, stinting himself to do it. Her brother had had the habit, too, since he was a boy, of bringing everything pretty or pleasant he found to his sister; he had a fancy that he was making her life bigger and more heartsome by it, and would have it all right after a while. So it ended, you see, that everything in the room had a meaning for the girl,—so many mile-stones in her father and Geordy's lives. Besides, though Dode was no artist, had not what you call taste, other than in being clean, yet every common thing the girl touched seemed to catch her strong, soft vitality, and grow alive. Bone had bestowed upon her the antlers of a deer which he had killed,—the one great trophy of his life; (she put them over the mantel-shelf, where he could rejoice his soul over them every time he brought wood to the fire;) last fall she had hung wreaths of forest-leaves about them, and now they glowed and flashed back the snow-light, in indignant life, purple and scarlet and flame, with no thought of dying; the very water in the vases on the table turned into the silver roots of hyacinths that made the common air poetic with perfume; the rough wire-baskets filled with mould, which she hung in the windows, grew living, and welled up, and ran over into showers of moss, and trailing wreaths of ivy and cypress-vine, and a brood of the merest flakes of roses, which held the hot crimson of so many summers gone that they could laugh in the teeth of the winter outside, and did do it, until it seemed like a perfect sham and a jest.

The wood-fire was clear, just now, when Dode came in; the little room was fairly alive, palpitated crimson; in the dark corners, under the tables and chairs, the shadows tried not to be black, and glowed into a soft maroon; even the pale walls flushed, cordial and friendly. Dode was glad of it; she hated dead, ungrateful colors: grays and browns belonged to thin, stingy duty-lives, to people who are patient under life, as a perpetual imposition, and, as Bone says, "gets into heben by the skin o' their teeth." Dode's color was dark blue: you know that means in an earthly life stern truth, and a tenderness as true: she wore it to-night, as she generally did, to tell God she was alive, and thanked Him for being alive. Surely the girl was made for to-day; she never missed the work or joy of a moment here in dreaming of a yet ungiven life, as sham, lazy women do. You would think that, if you had seen her standing there in the still light, motionless, yet with latent life in every limb. There was not a dead atom in her body: something within, awake, immortal, waited, eager to speak every moment in the coming color on her cheek, the quiver of her lip, the flashing words or languor of her eye. Her auburn hair, even, at times, lightened and darkened.

She stood, now, leaning her head on the window, waiting. Was she keeping, like the fire-glow, a still, warm welcome for somebody? It was a very homely work she had been about, you will think. She had made a panful of white cream-crackers, and piled them on a gold-rimmed China plate, (the only one she had,) and brought down from the cupboard a bottle of her raspberry-cordial. Douglas Palmer and George used to like those cakes better than anything else she made: she remembered, when they were starting out to hunt, how Geordy would put his curly head over the gate and call out, "Sis! are you in a good-humor? Have some of your famous cakes for supper, that's a good girl!" Douglas Palmer was coming to-night, and she had baked them, as usual,—stopping to cry now and then, thinking of George. She could not help it, when she was alone. Her father never knew it. She had to be cheerful for herself and him too, when he was there.

Perhaps Douglas would not remember about the crackers, after all?—with the blood heating and chilling in her face, as she looked out of the window, and then at the clock,—her nervous fingers shaking, as she arranged them on the plate. She wished she had some other way of making him welcome; but what could poor Dode do? She could not talk to him, had read nothing but the Bible and Jay's "Meditations"; she could not show glimpses of herself, as most American women can, in natural, dramatic words. Palmer sang for her,—sometimes, Schubert's ballads, Mendelssohn: she could not understand the words, of course; she only knew that his soul seemed to escape through the music, and come to her own. She had a strange comprehension of music, inherited from the old grandfather who left her his temper,--that supernatural gift, belonging to but few souls among those who love harmony, to understand and accept its meaning. She could not play or sing; she looked often in the dog's eyes, wondering if its soul felt as dumb and full as hers; but she could not sing. If she could, what a story she would have told in a wordless way to this man who was coming! All she could do to show that he was welcome was to make crackers. Cooking is a sensual, grovelling utterance of feeling, you think? Yet, considering the drift of most women's lives, one fancies that as pure and deep love syllables itself every day in beefsteaks as once in Sapphic odes. It is a natural expression for our sex, too, somehow. Your wife may keep step with you in keen sympathy, in brain and soul; but if she does not know whether you like muffins or toast best for breakfast, her love is not the kind for this world, nor the best kind for any.

She waited, looking out at the gray road. He would not come so late?—her head beginning to ache. The room was too hot. She went into her chamber, and began to comb her hair back; it fell in rings down her pale cheeks,—her lips were crimson,—her brown eyes shone soft, expectant; she leaned her head down, smiling, thanking God for her beauty, with all her heart. Was that a step?—hurrying back. Only Coly stamping in the stable. It was eight o'clock. The woman's heart kept time to the slow ticking of the clock, with a sick thudding, growing heavier every moment. He had been in the mountains but once since the war began. It was only George he came to see? She brought out her work and began to sew. He would not come: only George was fit to be his friend. Why should he heed her poor old father, or her?—with the undefinable awe of an unbred mind for his power and wealth of culture. And yet—something within her at the moment rose up royal—his equal. He knew her, as she might be! Between them there was something deeper than the shallow kind greeting they gave the world,—recognition. She stood nearest to him,—she only! If sometimes she had grown meanly jealous of the thorough-bred, made women, down in the town yonder, his friends, in her secret soul she knew she was his peer,—she only! And he knew it. Not that she was not weak in mind or will beside him, but she loved him, as a man can be loved but once. She loved him,—that was all!

She hardly knew if he cared for her. He told her once that he loved her; there was a half-betrothal; but that was long ago. She sat, her work fallen on her lap, going over, as women will, for the thousandth time, the simple story, what he said, and how he looked, finding in every hackneyed phrase some new, divine meaning. The same story; yet Betsey finds it new by your kitchen-fire to-night, as Gretchen read it in those wondrous pearls of Faust's!

Surely he loved her that day! though the words were surprised, half-accident: she was young, and he was poor, so there must be no more of it then. The troubles began just after, and he went into the army. She had seen him but once since, and he said nothing then, looked nothing. It is true they had not been alone, and he thought perhaps she knew all: a word once uttered for him was fixed in fate. She would not have thought the story old or certain, if he told it to her forever. But he was coming to-night!

Dode was one of those women subject to sudden revulsions of feeling. She remembered now, what in the hurry and glow of preparing his welcome she had crushed out of sight, that it was better he should not come,—that, if he did come, loyal and true, she must put him back, show him the great gulf that lay between them. She had strengthened herself for months to do it. It must be done to-night. It was not the division the war made, nor her father's anger, that made the bar between them. Her love would have borne that down. There was something it could not bear down. Palmer was a doubter, an infidel. What this meant to the girl, we cannot tell; her religion was not ours. People build their faith on Christ, as a rock,—a factitious aid. She found Him in her life, long ago, when she was a child, and her soul grew out from Him. He was a living Jesus to her, not a dead one. That was why she had a healthy soul. Pain was keener to her than to us; the filth, injustice, bafflings in the world,—they hurt her; she never glossed them over as "necessity," or shirked them as we do: she cried hot, weak tears, for instance, over the wrongs of the slaves about her, her old father's ignorance, her own cramped life; but she never said for these things, "Does God still live?" She saw, close to the earth, the atmosphere of the completed work, the next step upward,—the kingdom of that Jesus; the world lay in it, swathed in bands of pain and wrong and effort, growing, unconscious, to perfected humanity. She had faith in the Recompense, she thought faith would bring it right down into earth, and she tried to do it in a practical way. She did do it: a curious fact for your theology, which I go out of the way of the story to give you,—a peculiar power belonging to this hot-tempered girl,—an anomaly in psychology, but you will find it in the lives of Jung Stilling and St. John. This was it: she and the people about her needed many things, temporal and spiritual: her Christ being alive, and not a dead sacrifice and example alone, whatever was needed she asked for, and it was always given her. Always. I say it in the full strength of meaning. I wish every human soul could understand the lesson; not many preachers would dare to teach it to them. It was a commonplace matter with her.

Now do you see what it cost her to know that Palmer was an infidel? Could she marry him? Was it a sin to love him? And yet, could she enter heaven, he left out? The soul of the girl that God claimed, and the Devil was scheming for, had taken up this fiery trial, and fought with it savagely. She thought she had determined; she would give him up. But—he was coming! he was coming! Why, she forgot everything in that, as if it were delirium. She hid her face in her hands. It seemed as if the world, the war, faded back, leaving this one human soul alone with herself. She sat silent, the fire charring lower into glooming red shadow. You shall not look into the passion of a woman's heart.

She rose at last, with the truth, as Gaunt had taught it to her, full before her, that it would be crime to make compact with sin or a sinner. She went out on the porch, looking no longer to the road, but up to the uncertain sky. Poor, simple Dode! So long she had hid the thought of this man in her woman's breast, clung to it for all strength, all tenderness! It stood up now before her,—Evil. Gaunt told her to-night that to love him was to turn her back on the cross, to be traitor to that blood on Calvary. Was it? She found no answer in the deadened sky, or in her own heart. She would give him up, then? She looked up, her face slowly whitening. "I love him," she said, as one who had a right to speak to God. That was all. So, in old times, a soul from out of the darkness of His judgments faced the Almighty, secure in its own right: "Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me."

Yet Dode was a weak woman; the trial went home to the very marrow. She stood by the wooden railing, gathering the snow off of it, putting it to her hot forehead, not knowing what she did. Her brain was dull, worn-out, she thought; it ached. She wished she could sleep, with a vacant glance at the thick snow-clouds, and turning to go in. There was a sudden step on the path,—he was coming! She would see him once more,—once! God could not deny her that! her very blood leaping into hot life.

"Theodora!" (He never called her the familiar "Dode," as the others did.) "Why, what ails you, child?"—in his quiet, cordial fashion, "Is this the welcome you give me? The very blood shivers in your hand! Your lips are blue!"—opening the door for her to go in, and watching her.

His eye was more that of a physician than a lover, she felt, and cowered down into a chair he put before the fire for her,—sheltering her face with her hands, that he might not see how white it was, and despise her. Palmer stood beside her, looking at her quietly; she had exhausted herself by some excitement, in her old fashion; he was used to these spasms of bodily languor,—a something he pitied, but could not comprehend. It was an odd symptom of the thoroughness with which her life was welded into his, that he alone knew her as weak, hysteric, needing help at times. Gaunt or her father would have told you her nerves were as strong as a ploughman's.

"Have you been in a passion, my child?"

She chafed her hands, loathing herself that she could not deaden down their shiver or the stinging pain in her head. What were these things at a time like this? Her physician was taking a different diagnosis of her disease from his first. He leaned over her, his face flushing, his voice lower, hurried.

"Were you disappointed? Did you watch—for me?"

"I watched for you, Douglas,"—trying to rise.

He took her hand and helped her up, then let it fall: he never held Dode's hand, or touched her hair, as Gaunt did.

"I watched for you,—I have something to say to you,"—steadying her voice.

"Not to-night," with a tenderness that startled one, coming from lips so thin and critical. "You are not well. You have some hard pain there, and you want to make it real. Let it sleep. You were watching for me. Let me have just that silly thought to take with me. Look up, Theodora. I want the hot color on your cheek again, and the look in your eye I saw there once,—only once. Do you remember?"

"I remember,"—her face crimson, her eyes flashing with tears. "Douglas, Douglas, never speak of that to me! I dare not think of it. Let me tell you what I want to say. It will soon be over."

"I will not, Theodora," he said, coolly. "See now, child! You are not your healthy self to-night. You have been too much alone. This solitude down there in your heart is eating itself out in some morbid whim. I saw it in your eye. Better it had forced itself into anger, as usual."

She did not speak. He took her hand and seated her beside him, talked to her in the same careless, gentle way, watching her keenly.

"Did you ever know the meaning of your name? I think of it often,—The gift of God,—Theodora. Surely, if there be such an all-embracing Good, He has no more helpful gift than a woman such as you might be."

She looked up, smiling.

"Might be? That is not"——

"Lover-like? No. Yet, Dode, I think sometimes Eve might have been such a one as you,—the germ of all life. Think how you loathe death, inaction, pain; the very stem you thrust into earth catches vitality from your fingers, and grows, as for no one else."

She knew, through all, that, though his light words were spoken to soothe her, they masked a strength of feeling that she dared not palter with, a something that would die out of his nature when his faith in her died, never to live again.

"Eve fell," she said.

"So would you, alone. You are falling now, morbid, irritable. Wait until you come into the sunshine. Why, Theodora, you will not know yourself, the broad, warm, unopened nature."

His voice faltered; he stooped nearer to her, drew her hand into his own.

"There will be some June days in our lives, little one, for you and me,"—his tone husky, broken,—"when this blood-work is off my hand, when I can take you. My years have been hard, bare. You know, child. You know how my body and brain have been worn out for others. I am free now. When the war is over, I will conquer a new world for you and me."

She tried to draw away from him.

"I need no more. I am contented. For the future,—God has it, Douglas."

"But my hand is on it!" he said, his eye growing hard. "And you are mine, Theodora!"

He put his hand on her head: he never had touched her before this evening: he stroked back her hair with an unsteady touch, but as if it and she belonged to him, inalienable, secure. The hot blood flushed into her cheeks, resentful. He smiled quietly.

"You will bring life to me," he whispered. "And I will bleach out this anger, these morbid shadows of the lonesome days,—sun them out with—love."

There was a sudden silence. Gaunt felt the intangible calm that hung about this man: this woman saw beneath it flashes of some depth of passion, shown reluctant even to her, the slow heat of the gloomy soul below. It frightened her, but she yielded: her will, her purpose slept, died into its languor. She loved, and she was loved,—was not that enough to know? She cared to know no more. Did Gaunt wonder what the "cold blue eyes" of this man told to the woman to-night? Nothing which his warped soul would have understood in a thousand years. The room heated, glowless, crimson: outside, the wind surged slow against the windows, like the surf of an eternal sea: she only felt that her head rested on his breast,—that his hand shook, as it traced the blue veins on her forehead: with a faint pleasure that the face was fair, for his sake, which his eyes read with a meaning hers could not bear; with a quick throb of love to her Master for this moment He had given her. Her Master! Her blood chilled. Was she denying Him? Was she setting her foot on the outskirts of hell? It mattered not. She shut her eyes wearily, closed her fingers as for life upon the hand that held hers. All strength, health for her, lay in its grasp: her own life lay weak, flaccid, morbid on his. She had chosen: she would hold to her choice.

Yet, below all, the words of Gaunt stung her incessantly. They would take effect at last. Palmer, watching her face, saw, as the slow minutes passed, the color fade back, leaving it damp and livid, her lips grow rigid, her chest heave like some tortured animal. There was some pain here deeper than her ordinary heats. It would be better to let it have way. When she raised herself, and looked at him, therefore, he made no effort to restrain her, but waited, attentive.

"I must speak, Douglas," she said. "I cannot live and bear this doubt."

"Go on," he said, gravely, facing her.

"Yes. Do not treat me as a child. It is no play for me,"—pushing her hair back from her forehead, calling fiercely in her secret soul for God to help her to go through with this bitter work He had imposed on her. "It is for life and death, Douglas."

"Go on,"—watching her.

She looked at him. A keen, practical, continent face, with small mercy for whims and shallow reasons. Whatever feeling or gloom lay beneath, a blunt man, a truth-speaker, bewildered by feints or shams. She must give a reason for what she did. The word she spoke would be written in his memory, ineffaceable. He waited. She could not speak; she looked at the small vigilant figure: it meant all that the world held for her of good.

"You must go, Douglas, and never come again."

He was silent,—his eye contracted, keen, piercing.

"There is a great gulf between us, Douglas Palmer. I dare not cross it."

He smiled.

"You mean—the war?—your father?"

She shook her head; the words balked in her throat. Why did not God help her? Was not she right? She put her hand upon his sleeve,—her face, from which all joy and color seemed to have fallen forever, upturned to his.

"Douglas, you do not believe—as I do."

He noted her look curiously, as she said it, with an odd remembrance of once when she was a child, and they had shown her for the first time a dead body, that she had turned to the sky the same look of horror and reproach she gave him now.

"I have prayed, and prayed,"—an appealing cry in every low breath. "It is of no use,—no use! God never denied me a prayer but that,—only that!"

"I do not understand. You prayed—for me?"

Her eyes, turning to his own, gave answer enough.

"I see! You prayed for me, poor child? that I could find a God in the world?"—patting the hand resting on his arm pitifully. "And it was of no use, you think? no use?"—dreamily, his eye fixed on the solemn night without.

There was a slow silence. She looked awe-struck in his face: he had forgotten her.

"I have not found Him in the world?"—the words dropping slowly from his lips, as though he questioned with the great Unknown.

She thought she saw in his face hints that his soul had once waged a direr battle than any she had known,—to know, to be. What was the end? God, and Life, and Death, what were they to him now?

He looked at her at last, recalled to her. She thought he stifled a sigh. But he put aside his account with God for another day: now it was with her.

"You think it right to leave me for this, Theodora? You think it a sin to love an unbeliever?"

"Yes, Douglas,"—but she caught his hand tighter, as she said it.

"The gulf between us is to be the difference between heaven and hell? Is that true?"

"Is it true?" she cried suddenly. "It is for you to say. Douglas, it is you that must choose."

"No man can force belief," he said, dryly. "You will give me up? Poor child! You cannot, Theodora!"—smoothing her head with an unutterable pity.

"I will give you up, Douglas!"

"Think how dear I have been to you, how far-off you are from everybody in the world but me. Why, I know no woman so alone or weak as you, if I should leave you!"

"I know it,"—sobbing silently.

"You will stay with me, Theodora! Is the dull heaven Gaunt prates of, with its psalms and crowns, better than my love? Will you be happier there than here?"—holding her close, that she might feel the strong throb of his heart against her own.

She shivered.

"Theodora!"

She drew away; stood alone.

"Is it better?"—sharply.

She clutched her hands tightly, then she stood calm. She would not lie.

"It is not better," she said, steadily. "If I know my own heart, nothing in the coming heaven is so dear as what I lose. But I cannot be your wife, Douglas Palmer."

His face flashed strangely.

"It is simple selfishness, then? You fear to lose your reward? What is my poor love to the eternity of happiness you trade it for?"

A proud heat flushed her face.

"You know you do not speak truly. I do not deserve the taunt."

The same curious smile glimmered over his mouth. He was silent for a moment.

"I overrate your sacrifice: it costs you little to say, like the old Pharisee, 'Stand by, I am holier than thou!' You never loved me, Theodora. Let me go down—to the land where you think all things are forgotten. What is it to you? In hell I can lift up my eyes"—

She cried out sharply, as with pain.

"I will not forsake my Master," she said. "He is real, more dear than you. I give you up."

Palmer caught her hand; there was a vague deadness in her eye that terrified him; he had not thought the girl suffered so deeply.

"See, now," she gasped quickly, looking up, as if some actual Presence stood near. "I have given up all for you! Let me die! Put my soul out! What do I care for heaven?"

Palmer bathed her face, put cordial to her lips, muttering some words to himself. "Her sins, which are many, should be forgiven; she loves much." When, long after, she sat on the low settle, quiet, he stood before her.

"I have something to say to you, Theodora. Do you understand me?"

"I understand."

"I am going. It is better I should not stay. I want you to thank God your love for your Master stood firm. I do. I believe in you: some day, through you, I may believe in Him. Do you hear me?"

She bent her head, worn-out.

"Theodora, I want to leave you one thought to take on your knees with you. Your Christ has been painted in false colors to you in this matter. I am glad that as you understand Him you are true to Him; but you are wrong."

She wrung her hands.

"If I could see that, Douglas!"

"You will see it. The selfish care of your own soul which Gaunt has taught you is a lie; his narrow heaven is a lie: my God inspires other love, other aims. What is the old tale of Jesus?—that He put His man's hands on the vilest before He blessed them? So let Him come to me,—through loving hands. Do you want to preach the gospel, as some women do, to the Thugs? I think your field is here. You shall preach it to the heart that loves you."

She shook her head drearily. He looked at her a moment, and then turned away.

"You are right. There is a great gulf between you and me, Theodora. When you are ready to cross it, come to me."

And so left her.

CEREBRAL DYNAMICS.

The stranger in Paris, exploring its southern suburbs along the Fontainebleau road, comes upon an ancient pile, extended and renovated by modern hands, whose simple, unpretending architecture would scarcely claim a second look. Yet it was once the scene of an experiment of such momentous consequences that it will ever possess a peculiar interest both to the philanthropist and the philosopher. It was there, in that receptacle of the insane, while the storm of the great Revolution was raging around him, that a physician, learned, ardent, and bold, but scarcely known beyond the little circle of his friends and patients, conceived and executed the idea, then no less wonderful than that of propelling a ship by steam, of striking off the chains of the maniac and opening the door of his cell. Within a few days, says the record, fifty-three persons were restored to light and comparative liberty. In that experiment at the Bicêtre, whose triumphant success won the admiration even of those ferocious demagogues who had risen to power, was inaugurated the modern management of the insane, as strongly marked by kindness and confidence as the old was by severity and distrust. It was a noble work, whose benefits, reaching down to all future generations, are beyond the power of estimation; but its remote and indirect results are scarcely less important than those more immediate and visible. Here began the true study of mental disease. To the mind of Pinel, his experiment opened a track of inquiry leading to results which, like those of the famous discoveries in physical science, will never cease to be felt. A few collections of cases had been published, medical scholars, in the midst of their books, had composed elaborate treatises to show the various ways in which men might possibly become insane, but no profound, original observer of mental disease had yet appeared. Trained in that school of exact and laborious inquirers who at that period were changing the whole face of physical science, he was well prepared for the work which seemed to be reserved for him, of laying the foundations of this department of the healing art.

Without following him in the successive stages of his work, it is sufficient here to say, that the first step—that of showing that the insane are not necessarily under the dominion of brute instinct, incapable even of appreciating the arts of kindness and of using a restricted freedom—was soon succeeded by another of no less importance considered in its relations to humanity and psychology. Pinel, who began his investigations at the Bicêtre in the old belief that insanity implies disorder of the reasoning faculty, discovered, to his surprise, that many of his patients evinced no intellectual impairment whatever. They reasoned on all subjects clearly and forcibly; neither hallucination nor delusion perverted their judgments; and some even recognized and deplored the impulses and desires which they could not control. The fact was too common to be misunderstood, and having been confirmed by subsequent observers, it has taken its place among the well-settled truths of modern science. Not very cordially welcomed as yet into the current beliefs of the time, it is steadily making its way against the opposition of pride, prejudice, ignorance, and self-conceit.

The magnitude of this advance in psychological knowledge can be duly estimated only by considering how imperfect were the prevalent notions concerning mental disease. For the most part, our ancestors thought no man insane, whatever his conduct or conversation, who was not actually raving. If the person were quiet, taciturn, apathetic, he was supposed to be melancholy or hypochondriacal. If he were elated and restless, ready for all sorts of undertakings and projects, his condition was attributed to a great flow of spirits. If, while talking very sensibly on many subjects and doing many proper things, he manifested a propensity to wanton mischief, why, then he was possessed with a devil and consigned to chains and straw,—unless he had committed some senseless act of crime, in which case he received from the law the usual doom of felons.

One of the first fruits of the new method of study introduced by Pinel was a more philosophical notion of the nature of disease. The various diseases that afflict mankind had been regarded as so many different entities that could almost be handled, and many attempts to define and measure them exactly are on record. They came to be regarded somewhat as personal foes, to be combated and overcome by the superior prowess of the physician. It was not until such views were abandoned, and insanity, as well as every other disease, was considered as an abnormal action or condition, that true progress could be expected. One of the results of inquiry into the nature of insanity, starting from this point, has been a growing conviction that it implies defect and imperfection, as well as casual disorder. Attention is now directed less to occasional and exoteric incidents, and more to conditions which inhere in the original economy of the brain. We are sometimes required to look beyond the individual, and beyond the nervous system even, if we would discover the primordial movement which, having passed through one or two generations, finally culminates in actual disease. We say, in popular phrase, that the cause of insanity in this person was disappointed love, or reverse of fortune, and in that, a fever, or a translation of disease; the popular voice finds an echo in the records of the profession, and it all passes for very good philosophy. Now, the more we learn, the more reason have we to believe that the amount of truth in the common statistics respecting the causes of insanity bears but a very small proportion to the amount of error. That such things as those just mentioned are often deeply concerned in the production of insanity cannot be doubted, but their agency is small in comparison with those which exist in the original constitution of the patient, and are derived, in greater or less degree, from progenitors. We would not say that insanity has never occurred in a person whose brain was not vitiated by hereditary morbid tendencies, but we do say that the proportion of such cases is exceedingly small. All the seeming efficiency of the so-called "causes of insanity" requires that preparation which is produced by the deteriorating influences of progenitors, and without which they would be utterly powerless. Let us consider this matter a little more closely by the light which modern inquiry sheds upon it.

All the conditions of the bodily organs that determine the character of the function are not known, but all analogy shows that what in popular phrase is called quality is one of them. Exactly what this is nobody knows, nor is it necessary for our present purpose that we should know; but when we talk of the good or bad quality of an organ, we certainly do not talk without meaning. We have an intelligible idea of the difference between that constitution, of an organ which insures the highest measure of excellence in the function and that which admits of only the lowest. In the brain, as in other organs, size is to some extent a measure of power. The largest intellectual and moral endowments no one expects to see in connection with the smallest brain, and vice versâ, setting aside those instances of large size which are the effect of disease. The relative size of the different parts of the brain may have something to do with the character of the function, but this is a contested point. Education increases the mental efficiency, no doubt, but it is too late in the day to attribute everything to that. So that we are obliged to resort to that indescribable condition called quality, as the chief source and origin of the differences of mental power observed among men.

It is easier to say what this condition is not than what it is. It is not manifested to the senses by weight or color, dryness or moisture, hardness or softness. In these particulars all brains are pretty nearly alike. When the cerebral action stops and the man dies, we may find lesions visible enough to the sense,—vessels preternaturally engorged with blood, effusions of lymph, thickening of the membranes, changes of color and consistency,—but no one imagines these to be the cause and origin of the disturbance. Behind and beyond all this, in that intimate constitution of the organic molecules which no instrument of sense can bring to light, lies the source of mental activity, both healthy and morbid. There lies the source of all cerebral dynamics. Of this we are sure, unable, as we are, to demonstrate the fact to the senses.

Scientific observation has made us acquainted with some of the agencies which vitiate the quality of the brain, and it is our duty to profit by its results. The principal of them is morbid action in the brain itself, producing, more or less directly, disorder and weakness. But its deteriorating influence does not cease with the individual. In a large proportion of cases it is transmitted to the offspring; and though it may not appear in precisely the same form, yet the tokens of its existence are too obvious to be overlooked.—Another agency scarcely less efficient is that of neuropathies, to use the medical term,—meaning the various forms of disorder which have their origin in the brain, and comprising not only epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, and other convulsive affections, but that habit of body and mind which makes a person nervous. While they may abridge the mental efficiency of the patient comparatively little or not at all, they may exert this effect, and often do, in the highest degree, on his offspring. The amount of insanity in the world attributable to insanity in the progenitors, and therefore called, par éminence, hereditary, is scarcely greater than that which originates in this manner, and of which the essential condition is no less hereditary.—Another agency, acting on a large scale in some localities, is exerted by those diseases which are attributed to some disorder of the lymphatic system, as scrofula and rickets. Though not entirely unknown to the affluent classes, yet it is chiefly in the dwellings of the poor that these diseases find their victims. Cold, moisture, bad air, deficient nourishment,—too frequent accompaniments of poverty,—are peculiarly favorable to their production. The physical depravation thus induced is frequently transmitted to the brain in the next generation, and appears in the shape of mental disorder.—Again, it is now well known that the qualities of the race are depreciated by the intermarrying of relatives. The disastrous influence of such unions is exerted on the nervous system more than any other, and is a prolific source of deaf-mutism, blindness, idiocy, and insanity. Not, certainly, in all cases do we see these results, for the legitimate consequences of this violation of an organic law are often avoided by the help of more controlling influences, but they are frequent enough to remove any doubt as to their true cause. And the chances of exemption are greatly lessened where the marriage of consanguinity is repeated in the next generation. The manner in which the evil is effected may be conjectured with some approach to correctness, but to speculate upon it here would lead us astray from our present purpose. The amount of the evil may be thought to be comparatively small, but they who have a professional acquaintance with the subject would hardly undertake to measure the dimensions of all the physical and mental suffering which it involves. In one State, at least, in the Union, it has seemed formidable enough to require an act of the legislature forbidding the marriage of cousins.—The last we shall mention, among the agencies concerned in vitiating the quality of the brain, is that of excessive or long-continued intemperance; and for many years it has been a most fruitful source of mental deterioration: not, however, in the way which is generally imagined; for, though it may add some effect to a popular harangue to attribute a very large proportion of the existing cases of insanity directly to intemperance, yet, as a matter of fact, very few, probably, can be fairly traced to this cause solely. And yet, at the present time, it is unquestionably responsible for a very large share of the mental infirmities which afflict the race. The germ of the evil requires a second, perhaps a third, generation to bring it to maturity. And then it may appear in the form of mania, or idiocy, or intemperance. As a cause of idiocy, its potency has been placed beyond a doubt. Dr. S.G. Howe, whose thorough investigations entitle his conclusions to great weight, says, that, "directly or indirectly, alcohol is productive of a great proportion of the idiocy which now burdens the Commonwealth." There is this curious feature of its deteriorating influence, that the primary effect is not always persistent, but may be removed by removing the cause. In the Report of the Hospital at Columbus, Ohio, for 1861, the physician, Dr. Hills, says of one of his patients, that his father, in the first part of his married life, was strictly temperate, "and had four children, all yet remaining healthy and sound. From reverses of fortune, he became discouraged and intemperate for some years, having in this period four children, two of whom we had now received into the asylum; a third one was idiotic, and the fourth epileptic. He then reformed in habits, had three more children, all now grown to maturity, and to this period remaining sound and healthy." Another similar case follows. An intemperate parent had four children, two of whom became insane, one was an idiot, and the fourth died young, in "fits." Four children born previous to the period of intemperance, and two after the parent's reformation, are all sound and healthy. Often, it is well known, intemperance in the child is the hereditary sequel of intemperance in the parent. The irresistible craving, without the preliminary gradual indulgence, and in spite of judicious education, generally distinguishes it from intemperance resulting from other causes.

All these agencies have this trait in common, that their damaging effect is often felt by the offspring as well as the parent, and, in most cases, in a far higher degree. The common doctrine of hereditary disease implies the actual transmission of a specific form of disease fully developed,—or, at least, of a tendency to it that may or may not be developed. The range within which it operates is supposed to be the narrow limits covered by a single specific affection. Daily experience, however, shows that the deviation from the primitive type is limited only by some conditions of structure. Any pathological result may be expected, not incompatible with the structure of the organ. And thus it is that the cerebral affection which fell upon the parent is represented in one child by insanity, in another by idiocy, in another by epilepsy, in another by gross eccentricity, in another by moral perversities, in another by ill-balanced intellect,—each and all implying a brain more or less vitiated by the parental infirmity. There is nothing strange in all this diversity of result. In the healthy state, organic action proceeds with wonderful regularity and uniformity; but when controlled by the pathological element, all this is changed, although the change has its limits. This diversity in the results of hereditary transmission is as strictly according to law as the similarity of features exhibited by parent and child. No presumption against the fact can be derived from this quarter, and therefore, if well-authenticated, it must be admitted. Many a man, however, who admits the general fact, refuses to make the application where it has not been usually made. When mania occurs in two or three successive generations, nobody overlooks the hereditary element; but when the mania of the parent is followed by great inequalities of character, or strange impulses to criminal acts, then the effects of disease are straightway ignored, and we think only of moral liberty and free-will. It may be difficult, sometimes, to make the proper distinction between the effects of hereditary physical vitiation and those of bad education and strong temptations; but the difficulty is of the kind which stands in the way of all successful inquiry, to be overcome by patient and profound study.

Some light may be thrown on this deviation from the original type by considering the forces that are concerned in the hereditary act. The statement that like produces like is the expression of an obvious law. But we must bear in mind that the law is only so far observed as is necessary to maintain the characters of the species. Within that range there is every possible variety, and for a very obvious reason. Every individual represents immediately two others, and, indirectly, an indefinite number. This is done by uniting in himself qualities and features drawn from each parent, without any obvious principle or law of selection and combination. One parent may be, apparently, more fully represented than the other; the defects of the parent may be transmitted, rather than the excellences; the tendencies to health and strength may be outnumbered and overborne by the tendencies to disease. No individual, of course, can receive, entirely and completely, the features and attributes of both parents, for that would be a sort of practical absurdity; but in the process of selecting and combining, Nature exhibits the same inexhaustible variety that appears in all her operations. Even in the offspring of the same parents, however numerous, uniformity in this respect is seldom so obvious as diversity. This cerebral deterioration is subject to the same laws of descent as other traits, with a few exceptions without much bearing on the present question. We might as reasonably expect to see the nose or the eyes, the figure or the motions of either parent transmitted with the exactest likeness to all the offspring, as to suppose that an hereditary disease must necessarily be transmitted fully formed, with all the incidents and conditions which it possessed in the parent. And yet, in the case of mental disease, the current philosophy can recognize the evidence of transmission in no shape less demonstrative than delusion or raving. Contrary to all analogy, and contrary to all fact, it supposes that the hereditary affection must appear in the offspring in precisely the same degree of intensity which it had in the parent. If the son is stricken down with raving mania, like his father before him, then the relation of cause and effect is obvious enough; but if, on the contrary, the former exhibits only extraordinary outbreaks of passion, remarkable inequalities of spirit and disposition, irrelevant and inappropriate conduct, strange and unaccountable impulses, nothing of this kind is charged practically to the parental infirmity.

The cerebral defect once established, the modes in which it may be manifested in subsequent generations present no uniformity whatever. Insanity in a parent may be followed by any possible form of mental irregularity in the descendant,—insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, drunkenness, criminal impulses, eccentricity. And so, too, eccentricity, even of the least prominent kind, may be followed by grosser eccentricity, or even overt insanity, in the descendant. The cerebral defect is not necessarily manifested in an uninterrupted series of generations, for it often skips over one, and appears with redoubled energy in the next; and thus, in looking for proof of hereditary disease or defect, we are not to stop at the next preceding generation. We are too little acquainted with the laws of hereditary transmission to explain these things. We know this, however, that, side by side with that law which decrees the transmission of defects as well as excellences, there exists another law which restrains deviations from the normal type, which extinguishes the errant traits, and reestablishes the primitive characters of the organism. The combined and alternate action of these two laws may produce some of the inscrutable phenomena of hereditary transmission.

The transmission of the cerebral defect is often manifested in a manner exceedingly embarrassing to all who hold to the prevalent notions respecting sanity and insanity. It is sometimes confined to a very circumscribed range, beyond which the mind presents no material impairment. The sound and the unsound coexist, not in a state of fusion, but side by side, each independent of the other, and both derived from a common source. And the fact is no more anomalous than that often witnessed, of some striking feature of one parent associated in the child with one equally striking of the other. It is not the case exactly of partial insanity, or any mental defect, super-induced upon a mind otherwise sound,—for such defect is, in some degree, an accident, and may disappear; but here is a congenital conjunction of sanity and insanity, which no medical or moral appliances will ever remove. These persons may get on very well in their allotted part, and even achieve distinction, while the insane element is often cropping out in the shape of extravagances or irregularities in thought or action, which, according to the stand-point they are viewed from, are regarded either as gross eccentricity, or undisciplined powers, or downright insanity. For every manifestation of this kind they may show no lack of plausible reasons, calculated to mislead the superficial observer; but still the fact remains, that these traits, which are never witnessed in persons of well-balanced minds, are a part of their habitual character. When people of this description possess a high order of intellectual endowments, the unhealthy element seems to impart force and piquancy to their mental manifestations, and thus increase the embarrassment touching the true character of their mental constitution. When the defect appears in the reflective powers, it is often regarded as insanity, though not more correctly than if it were confined to the emotions and feelings. The man who goes through life creditably performing his part, but feeling, all the while, that everybody with whom he has any relations is endeavoring to oppose and annoy him, strays as clearly from the track of a healthy mind as if he believed in imaginary plots and conspiracies against his property or person. In neither case is he completely overcome by the force of the strange impression, but passes along, to all appearance, much like other men. Insane, in the popular acceptation, he certainly is not; but it is equally certain that his mind is not in a healthy condition. Lord Byron was one of this class, and the fact gives us a clew to the anomalies of his character. His mother was subject to violent outbreaks of passion, not unlike those often witnessed in the insane. On the paternal side his case was scarcely better. The loose principles, the wild and reckless conduct of his father procured for him the nickname of "Mad Jack Byron"; and his grand-uncle, who killed his neighbor in a duel, exhibited traits not very characteristic of a healthy mind. With such antecedents, it is not strange that he was subject to wild impulses, violent passions, baseless prejudices, uncompromising selfishness, irregular mental activity. The morbid element in his nervous system was also witnessed in the form of epilepsy, from which he suffered, more or less, during his whole life. The "vile melancholy" which Dr. Johnson inherited from his father, and which, to use his own expression, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober," never perverted nor hampered the exercise of his intellectual powers. He heard the voice of his distant mother calling "Sam"; he was bound to touch every post he passed in the streets; he astonished people by his extraordinary singularities, and much of his time was spent in the depths of mental distress; yet the march of his intellect, steady, uniform, and measured, gave no token of confusion or weakness.

In common life, among an order of men unknown beyond the circle of their neighborhood, this sort of mental dualism witnessed with remarkable frequency, though generally regarded as anomalous and unaccountable, rather than the result of an organic law. In some, the morbid element, without affecting the keenness of the intellect, is more active, intruding itself on all occasions, characterizing the ways and manners, the demeanor and deportment. Under the influence of peculiarly adverse circumstances, they are liable to lose occasionally the unsteady balance between the antagonistic forces of their mental nature, to conduct as if unquestionably insane, and to be treated accordingly. Of such the remark is always made by the world, which sees no nice distinctions, "If he is insane now, he was always insane." According as the one or the other phasis of their mind is exclusively regarded, they are accounted by some as always crazy, by others as uncommonly shrewd and capable. The hereditary origin of this mental defect in some form of nervous affection will always be discovered, where the means of information are afforded.

In some persons the morbid element appears in the shape of insensibility to nice moral distinctions. Their perception of them at all seems to be the result of imitation rather than instinct. With them, circumstances determine everything as to the moral complexion of their career in life. Whether they leave behind them a reputation for flagrant selfishness, meanness, and dishonesty, or for a commendable prudence and judicious regard for self,—whether they always keep within the precincts of a decent respectability, or run into disreputable courses,—depends mostly on chance and fortune. This intimate association of the saint and the sinner in the same individual, common as it is, is a stumbling-block to moralists and legislators. The abnormal element is entirely overlooked, or rather is confounded with that kind of moral depravity which comes from vicious training And, certainly, the distinction is not always very easily made; for, though sufficient light on this point may often be derived from the antecedents of the individual, yet it is impossible, occasionally, to remove the obscurity in which it is involved. However this may be, it is a warrantable inference from the results of modern inquiry, that the class of cases is not a small one, where the person commits a criminal act, or falls into vicious habits, with a full knowledge of the nature and consequences of his conduct, and prompted, perhaps, by the ordinary inducements to vice, who, nevertheless, would have been a shining example of virtue, had the morbid element in his cerebral organism been left out. In our rough estimates of responsibility this goes for nothing, like the untoward influences of education; and it could not well be otherwise, though it cannot be denied that one element of moral responsibility, namely, the wish and the power to pursue the right and avoid the wrong, is greatly defective.

There is another phasis of cerebral defect not very unlike the last, which of late years has been occurring with increasing frequency, embarrassing our courts, confounding the wise and the simple, and overwhelming respectable families with shame and sorrow. With an intellect unwarped by the slightest excitement or delusion, and with many moral traits, it may be, calculated to please and to charm, its subjects are irresistibly impelled to some particular form of crime. With more or less effort they strive against it, and when they yield at last, their conduct is as much a mystery to themselves as to others. Ordinary criminals excite some touch of pity, on the score of bad education or untamed passions; but if, in the common estimation of the world, there is one criminal more reprehensible than another, it is he who sins against great light and under the smallest temptations,—and, of course, the hottest wrath of an incensed community is kindled against him.

At the bar of yonder courtroom stands a youth with an aspect and manner indicative of culture and refinement far above those of the common herd of criminals. He was detected in the very act of committing a grave criminal offence. He has been educated under good moral influences, and possessed a patrimony that supplied every reasonable want. No looseness of living, no violent passion is alleged against him, and no adequate motive appears for the act. For a year or two past he has been unusually restless by day and by night, has slept poorly, and his countenance has worn an expression of distraction and anxiety. Various little details of conduct are related of him, which, though not morally censurable, were offensive to good taste and opposed to the ordinary observances of society. His friends are sure he is not the man he once was, but no expert ventures to pronounce him insane. Looking behind the scene, the mystery clears up, and we behold only a simple operation of cerebral dynamics. A glance at the family-history shows us a great-grandfather, an aunt, two second-cousins, and a brother unequivocally insane, the father and many other members widely noted for eccentricities and irregularities of a kind scarcely compatible with the idea of sanity. Considering that the brain does not spring out of the ground, but is the final product of all the influences which for generations have been working in the cerebral organism, it is not strange that the quality of his brain became so vitiated as to be incapable of some of its highest functions.—Looking a little farther back in our forensic experience, we behold a youth scarcely arrived at the age of legal majority, with a simple, verdant look, arraigned for trial on the charge of murder. He was the servant of a farmer, and his victim was an adopted daughter of the family, and some years younger than himself. One day they were left together to take care of the house, a little girl in the neighborhood having come in to keep them company. While engaged in the domestic services, quietly and pleasantly, he invited his companion to go with him into another room where he had something to show her, and there, within a few minutes, he cut her throat from ear to ear. He soon came down, told what he had done, and made no attempt to escape. They had always been on good terms; no provocation, no motive whatever for the act was shown or suspected. When questioned, he replied only,—"I loved her, no one could tell how much I loved her." He had been drinking cider during the morning, but his cool and collected manner, both before and after the act, showed that he was not intoxicated. His employers testified that they had always found him good-natured and correct, but considered his intellect somewhat below the average grade. A few months subsequently he died in jail of consumption. Regarded from the ordinary moral stand-points, this was a strange, an unaccountable, a monstrous act, and we are unable to take the first step towards a solution of the mystery. Looking, however, at the material conditions of his affections, his propensities, his impulses,—his cerebral dynamics,—we get a clew, at least, to the secret. His father was an habitual drunkard, and a frequent inmate of the poor-house. He had two children,—one an idiot, and the other the prisoner; and the mental deficiency of the former, and the senseless impulses to crime manifested by the latter, were equally legitimate effects of the father's vice.—Here, again, is one who might justly be regarded as a favored son of fortune. Fine talents, a college-education, high social position, an honorable and lucrative business in prospect were all his; but before leaving college he had made considerable proficiency in lying, drinking, forgery, and hypocrisy, besides evincing a remarkable ingenuity in concealing these traits. His vices only increased with years, notwithstanding the various parental expedients to effect reform,—a voyage to sea, establishment in business, confinement in a hospital for the insane, a residence in the country, a settlement in a new territory. All this time his intellect was cool and clear, except when under the influence of drink, and he was always ready with the most plausible explanations of his conduct. At last, however, delusions began to appear, and unquestionable and incurable insanity was established. The philosophy of our times utterly fails to account for a phenomenon like this. Had the hand of the law been laid upon him for his offences, he would have been regarded as one of those examples of depravity which deserve the severest possible punishment; and when the true nature of his case appeared at last, doctors only wondered how so much mental disorder could happen to one whose progenitors were singularly free from mental infirmities. In noticing the agencies calculated to vitiate the quality of the brain, we mentioned the neuropathies as among the most efficient, though their effect is chiefly witnessed in subsequent generations, and the present case is an illustration of the fact. His mother was a highly nervous woman, and for many years a confirmed invalid.

This, then, being admitted, that a vitiated quality of the brain may be transmitted to the offspring with accumulating effect, let us see what are the general characteristics of this effect. We have no reason to suppose that the brain is exempt from the operation of the same organic laws which govern the rest of the animal economy. Observation abundantly shows that its working capacity is diminished, and its activity becomes irregular in one or more of the various degrees of irregularity, ranging from a little eccentricity up to raving mania. Occasionally, such defect is accompanied by remarkable manifestations of mental ability, but it is no part of our doctrine that such conjunctions are incompatible. Byron and Johnson accomplished great things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain, which may partake of all the defects incident to organized matter? Why expect of one among whose progenitors insanity, idiocy, scrofula, rickets, and epilepsy have prevailed in an extraordinary degree all the moral and intellectual excellences displayed by those whose blood through a long line of ancestors has been untainted by any of these affections?

It is chiefly, however, in abnormal activity that the presence of this cerebral depreciation is indicated. And here we find the same disposition to insist on positive and absolute conditions, overlooking those nicer shades of diversity which mark the movements of Nature. It is the common belief that between eccentricity and insanity a great gulf is fixed; and in courts of justice this notion is often used with great effect to overthrow the conclusions of the medical expert, who, while he admits their essential difference, finds it not very easy to avoid the trap which a quick-witted lawyer is sure to make of it. Let him recognize the fact that they are the results of a common agency, differing chiefly in degree, and then his path is clear, though it may not lead to popular confidence in his professional views.

Neither is the cerebral depreciation confined to any particular portion of the organ; and therefore its effects may be witnessed in any of those manifestations which are known to depend upon it. The affective powers, meaning thereby the passions, affections, and emotions, are, like the intellectual, connected with the brain, and, like them too, are shaped, in a great degree, by the quality of that organ. It is curious, however, that, while this fact is admitted in general terms, there is a prevalent reluctance to make the legitimate practical application. It is denied that the moral powers and propensities can be affected by disease, though connected with a material organ. Everybody believes that a man who thinks his legs are made of glass is insane; but if his affections only are disordered,—love and kindness being replaced by jealousy and hate,—an habitual regard for every moral propriety, by unbounded looseness of life and conversation,—the practice of the strictest virtue, by unblushing indulgence of crime, and all without apparent cause or motive,—then the morbid element in the case is overlooked and stoutly repudiated. We admit that a man may be a fool without any fault of his own; but if he fall short of any of the requirements of the moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal. Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether it has not become deteriorated by morbid predispositions, transmitted with steadily accumulating force, to insanity, or other affections which are known to spread their noxious influence over the nervous system.

A scientific fact is supposed to be entitled to credence, when accompanied by proper scientific proof; but, nevertheless, many worthy people cannot resist the conclusion, that, if a man's moral character is determined by the quality of the brain, then there is no such thing as responsibility. And so we are brought up all standing against the old problem of moral liberty, on which oceans of ink have been shed to little purpose. Heaven forbid that we should add another drop! for our object will be served by stating very briefly the scientific view of this phenomenon. Every creature is free, within the limits of the constitution which Nature has given him, to act and to think, each after his kind. The horse rejoices in the liberty of acting like a horse, and not like an ox; and man enjoys the privilege of acting the part of a man, and not of a disembodied spirit. If the limbs of the former are struck by an atrophy, we do not expect him to win the race. If the brain of the latter is blasted by disease or deterioration, we cannot expect the fruits of a sound and vigorous organism. When we say that a person with a brain vitiated by an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who, from childhood, are brought face to face with want and vice, we do not expect to find the moral graces of a Channing or a Cheverus; and we do not hold them to a very strict responsibility for the deficiency. But they are not utterly destitute of a moral sense, and what we have a right to expect is, that they improve, in a reasonable degree, the light and opportunities which have fallen to their lot. The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity, whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even where the necessity for it is the greatest; but we dissent from the conclusion, that therefore the doctrine can have but little practical value. It is something to have the fact of the intimate connection between organic conditions and moral manifestations distinctly recognized. The advance of knowledge will be steadily widening the practical application of the fact. A judge might not be justified in favoring the acquittal of a criminal on the ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of sentence.

A NEW SCULPTOR.

Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,

Of mien unwonted,

And its pale shapes of glory without shame

Or speech confronted.

Fair was my hall,—a gallery of Gods

Smoothly appointed;

With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sods

Freshly anointed.

Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,

And fiery Bacchus;

Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of Fear

Whose visions rack us.

Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,

The hunt just scented;

Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,

The myriad-tented.

Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,

Draped in such clothing

As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,

Look on with loathing.

And yet, methought, his service-badge of soil

With honor wearing;

And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,

A hammer bearing.

But while I waited till his eye should sink,

O'ercome of beauty,

With heart impatience brimming to the brink

Of courteous duty,—

He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,

His weapon poising;

I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,

No comment voicing.

"Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,

Wreck of past ages,—

Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,

Ye grooms and pages!"

Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,

A frame he builded

Of a new feature,—with the power of birth

Fashioned and welded.

It had a might mine eyes had never seen,

A mien, a stature,

As if the centuries that rolled between

Had greatened Nature.

It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic sway

A place was won it:

The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"

He wrote upon it.

"What man art thou?" I cried, "and what this wrong

That thou hast wrought me?

My marbles lived on symmetry and song;

Why hast thou brought me

"A form of all necessities, that asks

Nurture and feeding?

Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,

Nor my high breeding."

"Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate,

Nourished by Labor!

Thy Gods are gone with old-time faith and Fate;

Here is thy Neighbor."

PLAYS AND PLAY-ACTING.

One evening, after seeing Booth in "Richard III.," three of us fell a-talking about the authorship of the play, and wondering how far Shakespeare was responsible for what we had heard. Everybody knows that Colley Cibber improved upon the text of the old folios and quartos: for what was listened to with delight by Ben Jonson could not satisfy Congreve, and William III. needed better verses than those applauded by Queen Elizabeth. None of us knew how great or how many these improvements were. I doubt whether many of the audience that crowded the theatre that evening were wiser than we. The next day I got an acting copy of "Richard III.," and, with the help of Mrs. Clarke's Concordance,[1] arrived at the following astonishing results.

"Shakspeare's Historical Tragedy of Richard III., adapted to Representation by Colley Cibber," (I quote the full title for its matchless impudence,) makes a pamphlet of fifty-nine small pages. Of these, Cibber was good enough to write twenty-six out of his own head. Then, modestly recognizing Shakespeare's superiority, he took twenty-seven pages from him, (not all from this particular play, to be sure,) remodelled six other pages of the original, and, mixing it all up together, produced a play, and called it Shakespeare.

With Mrs. Clarke's touchstone it is easy to separate the base metal from the fine gold; though you have only to ring most of Cibber's counterfeits to see how flat they are. Would any one take the following for genuine coin, and believe that Shakespeare could make a poor ghost talk thus?

"PRINCE E. Richard, dream on, and see the wandering spirits

Of thy young nephews, murdered in the tower:

Could not our youth, our innocence, persuade

Thy cruel heart to spare our harmless lives?

Who, but for thee, alas! might have enjoyed

Our many promised years of happiness.

No soul, save thine, but pities our misusage.

Oh! 'twas a cruel deed! therefore alone,

Unpitying, unpitied shalt thou fall."

Or thus:—

"K. HENRY. The morning's dawn has summoned me away;

And let that wild despair, which now does prey

Upon thy mangled thoughts, alarm the world.

Awake, Richard, awake! to guilty minds

A terrible example!"

No wonder that Gloucester finds it quite hopeless to reply to such ghosts in the words Shakespeare put into his mouth, and so has recourse to Cibber. We are not told what (Cibber's) ghosts say to Richmond; but he declares,—

"If dreams should animate a soul resolved,

I'm more than pleased with those I've had to-night."

Just after this, it is rather confusing to find him straying off into "Henry V." Still, "In peace there's nothing so becomes a man," seems to promise Shakespeare at least,—so compose yourself to listen and enjoy:—

"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As mild behavior and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment."

After this outrage, I defy you to help hoping that the comparatively innocent Richard will chop off Richmond's head,—in spite of history and Shakespeare.

It does not follow that all change or omission is unlawful in placing Shakespeare's plays on the stage. Though in the pit or parquet we sit (more or less) at our ease, instead of standing as the groundlings did in old days, yet a tragedy five hours and a half long would be rather too much of a good thing for us. There must have been a real love of the drama in those times. Fancy a fine gentleman, able to pay his shilling and sit with the wits upon the rush-strewn stage, listening for such a length of time to "Hamlet," with no change of scenes to help the illusion or break the monotony, beyond a curtain or two hung across the stage, a wooden gallery at the back whence the court of Denmark might view "The Mouse-Trap," and, perhaps, a wooden tomb pushed on or "discovered" in the graveyard-scene by pulling aside one of these curtains or "traverses." No pretty women, either, dressed in becoming robes, and invested with the mysterious halo of interest which an actress seems to bring with her from the side-scenes. No women at all. Poor Ophelia presented by a great lubberly boy, and the part of the Queen very likely intrusted to him who was last year the "jeune première," and whose voice is now somewhat cracked within the ring. To be sure, in those days every gentleman took his pipe with him; and the fragrant clouds would be some consolation in the eyes, or rather in the noses, of some of us. But still,—almost six hours of tragedy! It is too much of a good thing for these degenerate days; and we must allow the prompter to use his pencil on the actors' copy of "Hamlet," though he strike out page upon page of immortal philosophy.

But there are certain parts of this play omitted whose loss makes one grieve. Why do the actors leave out the strange half-crazed exclamations wrung from Hamlet by his father's voice repeating "Swear" from beneath his feet?

"HAM. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST [beneath]. Swear.

HAM. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?—

Come on,—you hear this fellow in the cellarage—

* * * * *

Swear by my sword.

GHOST [beneath]. Swear.

HAM. Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our ground.—

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword:

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

Swear by my sword.

GHOST [beneath]. Swear.

HAM. Well said, old mole! Canst work i' the ground so fast?

A worthy pioneer I....

... This not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear.

GHOST [beneath]. Swear.

HAM. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!"

The sensitive organization which makes Hamlet what he is has been too rudely handled: the machine, too delicate for the rough work of every-day life, breaks down, under the strain. The horror of the time—beginning with Horatio's story of the apparition, and growing more fearful with every moment of reflection, until Hamlet longs for the coming of the dread hour—reaches a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward, and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to secrecy before escaping from them,—there, from under their feet and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his ears. In terror they hurry to another spot; but the awful voice follows their steps, and its tones shake the ground under them. What wonder, if, broken down by all this, Hamlet utters words which would be irreverent in their levity, were they not terrible in their wildness? Have you never marked what pathos there is in a very trivial phrase used by one so crushed down by grief that he acts and speaks like a little child?

It is wonderful that a great actor should neglect a passage that paints with one touch Hamlet's half-hysterical state. Given as it might be given, it would curdle the blood in your veins. I asked the best Hamlet it has been my fortune to see, why he left out these lines. "I have often thought I would speak them; but I don't know how." That was his answer, and a very honest one it was. But such a reason is not worthy of any man who dares to play Hamlet,—much less of one who plays it as —— does.

It is curious to observe how persistently the players, in making up the stage-travesties of Shakespeare's plays, have followed the uncertain lead of the quartos, where they and the folio differ. It almost seems as if the stage-editors found something more congenial in a text made up from the actors' recollections, plentifully adorned with what we now call "gag." They appear to forget one capital fact: that Shakespeare was at once actor, author, and manager,—that he wrote for the stage exclusively, producing plays for the immediate use of his own company,—and that his plays may therefore be reasonably supposed to be "adapted to representation" in their original state. Does Mr. Crummles know better than Master Shakespeare knew how "Romeo and Juliet" should be ended with the best effect,—not only to the ear in the closet, but theatrically on the stage? The story was not a new one; and the dramatist deliberately followed one of two existing versions rather than the other. In Boisteau's translation of Bandello's novel, Juliet wakes from her trance before Romeo's death; in Brooke's poem, which the great master chose to adopt as his authority, all is over, and she wakes to find her lover dead. Garrick must needs know better than Shakespeare, the actor-author; and no stage Romeo has the grace to die until he has, in elegant phrase, "piled up the agony" with lines like these:—

"JULIET. ... Death's in thy face.

ROM. It is indeed. I struggle with him now:

The transports that I felt,

To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes,

Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course,

And all my mind was happiness and thee:—

But now," etc.,

"My powers are blasted;

'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted;

But death is strongest."

And then, to give a chance for the manoeuvre beloved by dying actors,—that getting up and falling back into the arms of the actress kneeling by him, with a proper amount of gasping and eyes rolling in delirium,—the stage Romeo adds:—

"ROM. She is my wife,—our hearts are twined together:—

Capulet, forbear:—Paris, loose your hold:—

Pull not our heart-strings thus;—they crack,—they break:—

Oh, Juliet, Juliet!"

[Dies. Juliet faints on his body.

Is this Garrick or Otway? (for I believe Garrick borrowed some of his improvements from Otway's "Caius Marius.") I don't know, and don't care. It is not Shakespeare. It may "show something of the skill of kindred genius," as the preface to the acting edition says it does. I confess I do not see it. I would have such bombast delivered with the traditional accompaniment of red fire; and the curtain should descend majestically to the sound of slow music. That would be consistent and appropriate.

* * * * *

It has always been a consoling thought to Englishmen that Shakespeare exists for them alone,—or that a Frenchman's nature, at least, makes it hopeless for him to try to understand the great dramatist. They confess that their neighbors know how to construct the plot of a comedy, and prove the honesty of their approval by "borrowing" whatever they can make useful. French tragedies they despise—(though a century ago the new English tragedies were generally Corneille or Racine in disguise). As to Shakespeare, it has time out of mind been an article of faith with the insolent insulars that he is quite above any Frenchman's reach. One by one they are driven from their foolish prejudices, and made to confess that Frenchmen may equal them in some serious things, as well as beat them in all the lighter accomplishments. French iron-clad steamers have been followed by the curious spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. Charles Kean are called great actors, makes the English newspaper-criticisms of little value. In default of this, I have been reading M. Fechter's acting edition of "Othello," which a friend kindly sent me from London. It is a curiosity,—not the text, which is incorrect, full of arbitrary changes, and punctuated in a way almost unintelligible to an English eye: colons being scattered about with truly French profusion. The stage-directions are the interest of the book. They are so many and so minute that it seems a wonder why they were printed, if M. Fechter is sincere in declaring that he has no desire to force others to follow in his exact footsteps in this part. But they are generally so judicious, as well as original, that actors born with English tongues in their heads may well be ashamed that a foreigner could find so many new and effective resources on their own ground. For example: when Othello and Iago are first met by the enraged Brabantio, the Moor is standing on the threshold of his house, having just opened the door with a key taken from his girdle. He is going in, when he sees the lights borne by the other party. Observe how Othello's honest frankness is shown by the action:—

"OTH. But look: what lights come yonder?

IAGO. These are the raised father and his friends.

[Othello shuts the door quickly and takes the key.

You were best go in.

OTH. [coming forward], Not I: I must be found!"

Again, at the end of this scene, see how thoroughly the editor has studied the legitimate dramatic effect of the situations, preserving to each person his due place and characteristic manner:—

"BRAB. [To his followers]. Bring him away!

[They advance to take Othello, who puts them back with a look.

Mine's not an idle cause:

[Passes before Othello, who bows to him with respect.

The Duke himself," etc.

[Exit, preceded by the servants of the Senate. His followers are about to pass; Othello stays them, beckons to Cassio, and exit with him. The rest follow, humbly.

The scene wherein Iago first begins to poison the Moor's mind is admirable in the situations and movements of the actors. A great variety is given to the dialogue by the minute directions set down for the guidance of the players. It would be tedious to give them in detail; but I must point out the truth of one action, near the end. The poison is working; but as yet Othello cannot believe he is so wronged,—he is only "perplexed in the extreme,"—not yet transformed quite out of his noble nature.

"OTH. [dismissing Iago with a gesture]. Farewell! farewell!

[Stopping him, as he goes to the door on the right.

If more thou dost perceive, let me know more:

Set on thy wife to observe——

[He stops, suffused with shame, and crosses before Iago, without looking at him.

Leave me, Iago.

IAGO. My lord, I take my leave."

This is an idea worthy of a great actor; and of M. Fechter's acting here an English critic says,—"Delicate in its conception and marvellous in its close adherence to Nature is the expression that accompanies the words. The actor's face is literally suffused with a burning blush; and, as he buries his face in his hands, we almost fancy we see the scalding tears force their way through the trembling fingers and adorn the shame-reddened cheeks." The same writer goes on to praise "the ingenuity and novelty of the glance at the reflection of his dark face in the mirror, which suggests the words, 'Haply for I am black.'" I cannot agree. Othello had been too often reproached with his swarthy skin and likened to the Devil by Desdemona's father to need any such commonplace reminder of his defects, in his agony of doubt. It is, however, a fair ground for difference of opinion. But when the same artifice is resorted to in the last act to explain the words, "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!!"—and Othello is made to take up a toilet-glass which has fallen from Desdemona's hand,—it becomes a vile conceit, unworthy of the situation or of an actor like Fechter. A man does not look in the glass, and talk about his complexion, when he is going to kill what he loves best in life; and if the words are broken and unintelligible, they are all the truer to Nature. The whole of the last act, as arranged by Fechter, is bad. There is no propriety in directing Desdemona to leave her bed and walk about,—to say nothing of the scramble that must ensue when Othello "in mad fury throws her onto the bed" again. But what shall we say of this?

"OTH. What noise is this?

[He turns to the side whence the noise comes, and raises the pillow, but, as Desdemona stirs, replaces it abruptly.

Not dead! Not yet quite dead!

I, that am cruel, am yet merciful;

I would not have thee linger in thy pain.

[Passing his poignard under the pillow, and turning away his eyes,

So,—so."

What, but that it is utterly vile and melodramatic, contrary to Othello's expressed resolve, and quite unnecessary?—for a better effect would be produced, if the actor averted his head and with both hands pressed hard upon the pillow, trembling in every limb at the horrible deed he is forced, in mercy, to bring to a quick end. This idea of stabbing Desdemona at last is not original with Fechter,—who here, and in several other places, has consented to follow our stage-traditions, and has been led astray.

* * * * *

Shakespeare on the stage is a sad falling off from Shakespeare in the closet. (I do not mean on the American stage only: the theatre in England is, if possible, lower than with us.) To a great extent this is unavoidable. Our imaginations are not kept in check by the pitiless limits that make themselves felt in the theatre. An army, when we read of it, seems something far grander than all that can be effected by the best-appointed company of actors. The forest of Ardennes has for us life and motion beyond the reach of the scene-painter's skill. But these necessary shortcomings are no excuse for making no attempt to imitate Nature. Yet hardly any serious effort is made to reach this purpose of playing. The ordinary arrangement of our stage is as bad as bad can be, for it fails to look like the places where the action is supposed to lie. Two rows of narrow screens stretching down from the ends of a broad screen at the back never can be made to look like a room, still less like a grove. Such an arrangement may be convenient for the carpenters or scene-shifters, and is very likely cheaper than a properly designed interior. But it does not look like what it pretends to be, and has been superseded on every stage but ours and the English by properly constructed scenery. Who ever went into a French theatre for the first time without being charmed by the reality of the scene? They take the trouble to build a room, when a room is wanted, with side-walls and doors, and often a ceiling. The consequence is, you can fancy yourself present at a scene taken from real life. The theatre goes no farther than the proscenium. Beyond that, you have a parlor, with one wall removed for your better view. It is Asmodeus's show improved. I went to a Paris theatre with a friend. The play began with half a dozen milliners chattering and sewing round a table. After a few moments, my friend gave a prodigious yawn, and declared he was going home, "for you might as well sit down and see a parcel of real milliners at work as this play." Tastes differ; and I did not find this an objection. But what a compliment that was to the whole corps,—actors, actresses, and scene-painter!—and how impossible it would be to make the same complaint of an English play!

"But," I have been told by theatrical people, "such an arrangement is all very well in French vaudevilles, where one scene lasts through an act; but it will not do for English plays, with their constant scene-shifting." I grant it is less convenient to the stage-manager than the present wretched assembly of screens; but it is not impracticable in any play. Witness the melodramas which are the delight of the patrons of the minor Paris theatres,—pièces à spectacle en 4 actes et 24 tableaux, that is, twenty-four changes of scene. I remember sitting through one which was so deadly stupid that nothing but the ingenuity of the stage-arrangements made it endurable. Side-scenes dropped down into their places,—"flats" fell through the stage or were drawn up out of sight,—trees and rocks rose out of the earth,—in a word, scenery that looked like reality, and not like canvas, was disposed and cleared away with such marvellous rapidity that I forgot to yawn over the play. Attention to these matters is almost unknown with us: perhaps, in strict justice, I ought to say was unknown until very lately. Within a few years, one or two of our theatres have profited by the example set by stage-managers abroad. At Wallack's, in New York, rooms have to a great extent taken the place of the old screens; and only the other night at the Boston Museum I saw an arrangement of scenery which really helped the illusion.

Let us hope there may be a speedy reform in the matter of the costume of the players,—at least in plays where the dresses are of our own time. You may count on your fingers the actresses in America who dress on the stage as ladies dress in polite society. And as for the actors, I am afraid one hand has too many fingers for the tally. Because people go to the President's Ball in frock-coats is no reason why actors who undertake to look like fashionable gentlemen should outrage all conventional rules. I once saw a play in which a gentleman came to make an informal morning-visit to a lady in the country, in that dress which has received the bitterly ironical name of "full American uniform," that is to say, black dress-coat and trousers and black satin waistcoat; and the costume was made even more complete by a black satin tie, of many plaits, with a huge dull diamond pin in it, and a long steel watch-chain dangling upon the wretched man's stomach. He might have played his part to perfection,—which he did not, but murdered it in cold blood,—but he might have done so in vain; nothing would or could absolve him from such a crime against the god of fashion or propriety. "Little things, these," the critic may say: and so our actors seem to think. But life is made up of little things; and if you would paint life, you must attend to them. Ask any one who has spent (wasted?) evening after evening at the Paris theatres about them; and, ten to one, he begins by praising the details, which, in their sum, conveyed the impression of perfection he brought away with him.

Unless you are a little cracked on the subject of the stage, (as I confess I am,) and have talked with a French actor about it, you have no idea how systematically they train their young actors. I will tell you a few of the odd facts I picked up in long talks with my friend Monsieur D——. of the Théâtre Français.

The Conservatoire, their great school for actors, is, like almost everything else in Paris, more or less under Government control,—the Minister of State being charged with its superintendence. He appoints the professors, who are actors of the Français, and receive a salary of two thousand francs. The first order a pupil receives, on presenting himself for instruction, is this: "Say rose." Now your Parisian rather prides himself on a peculiar pronunciation of the letter r. He neither rolls it like an Italian, nor does he make anything like the noise standing for r in our conversational English,—something like uhr-ose,—a sound said to be peculiar to our language. A Parisian rolls his r, by making his uvula vibrate, keeping the tongue quite still: producing a peculiar gurgling sound. This is an abomination in the ears of the Conservatoire. "Ne grasseyez donc pas, Monsieur," or "Mademoiselle," says the professor, fiercely,—this peculiar way of saying r being called grasseyement. The pupil tries again, using the tip of his tongue this time. "Ah! I thought so. Your r is pasty (empâté). Say tuddah!" (I spell this sound à l'Anglaise.) "Tuddah" repeats the wondering candidate. "Thuddah?" the professor repeats, with great disgust: "I did not ask you to say thuddah, but tuddah." The victim tries again and again, and thinks he succeeds; but the master does not agree with him. His delicate ear detects a certain thickness of enunciation,—which our th very imperfectly represents,—a want of crispness, as it were. The tip of the tongue does not strike the front teeth with a single tick, as sharp as a needle-point; and until he can do this, the pupil can do nothing. He is dismissed with the advice to say "tuddah, tuddah, tuddah," as many hours a day as he can without losing his mind. D—— told me he often met young men walking about the streets in all the agonies of this first step in the art of learning to act, and astonishing the passers-by with this mysterious jargon. A pupil of average quickness and nicety of ear learns to say tuddah in about a month. Then he is told to say rose once more. The training his tongue has received enables him to use only its very tip. A great point is gained: he can pronounce the r. Any other defects in pronunciation which he has are next attacked and corrected. Then he is drilled in moving, standing, and carriage. And finally, "a quantity of practice truly prodigious" is given to the ancien répertoire,—the classic models of French dramatic literature, Corneille, Racine, Molière, Beaumarchais, etc. The first scholar of each year has the right to appear at once at the Théâtre Français,—a right rarely claimed, as most young actors prefer to go through a novitiate elsewhere to braving the most critical audience in the world before they have acquired the confidence that comes only with habit and success. After he has gained a foothold at this classic theatre, an actor still sees prizes held out to stimulate his ambition. If he keeps the promise of his youth, he may hope to be chosen a stockholder (sociétaire), and thus obtain a share both in the direction of affairs and in the profits, besides a retiring pension, depending in, amount upon his term of service.

Panem, et circenses is the demand of modern Paris, as it was of old Rome,—and the people expect the Government to see that neither supply fails. While the Opera receives large sums to pay for gorgeous scenery and dresses, the Français is paid for devoting three nights in the week to the classical school: a real loss to the theatre at times when the fickle public would gladly crowd the house to applaud the success of the hour. The Minister of State interferes as seldom as possible with the management; but when he speaks, his word is law. This was queerly shown in a dispute about Rachel's congés. At first she played during nine months of the year three times a week; later her duties were reduced to six months in the year, playing only twice a week, at a salary of forty thousand francs, with five hundred francs for every extra performance. Spoiled by indulgence, she demanded leave of absence just when the Queen of England was coming to Paris. The manager indignantly refused. The next day the Minister of State politely requested that Mlle. Rachel might have a short congé. "It is not reasonable," said the poor manager. "We have cut down her duties and raised her salary; now the Queen is coming, Paris will be full of English, and they are always crazy after Mlle. Rachel. It is really out of the question, Monsieur le Ministre." The Minister was very sorry, but hoped there would be no real difficulty. The manager was equally sorry, but really he could not think of it. "Monsieur," said the Minister, rising and dismissing the manager, "il le faut," "Oh, il le faut? Then it must;—only you might as well have begun with that." And so Rachel got her leave of absence.

(I must insert here from my note-book a criticism on Rachel,—valuable as coming from a man of talent in her own profession who had worked with her for years, and deserving additional weight, as it was, no doubt, rather the collective judgment of her fellow-actors than the opinion of the speaker alone.)

"Rachel," said M. D——, "was a great genius,—but a genius that ever needed the hand of a master to guide its efforts. Without this, she could do nothing: and Samson was forever behind her, directing her steps. Mme. Allan, who weighed almost three hundred pounds and had an abominable voice, was infinitely her superior in the power of creating a part. But Rachel had the voice of an angel. In the expression of disdain or terror she was unapproachable. In the softer passions she was feeble. We all looked upon her Lady Tartuffe as a failure."

* * * * *

Such a school of acting as the Conservatoire and the Français form could of course never be seen in America. The idea of our popular practical Government undertaking to direct the amusements of the people is quite ludicrous. In France, the Government does all it can for the people. With us, the people are left to do everything for themselves, with the least possible amount of Government interference. Our play-writers and play-actors could do a great deal to raise the standard of stage-literature and of acting, if they would but try. But they do not try. I went the other evening to see that relic of the Dark Ages, a sterling English comedy. If any one thinks I go too far in saying that there is no attempt on our stage to imitate Nature, and that the writing and acting of English plays are like the landscape-painting of the Chinese,—a wonderfully good copy of the absurdities handed down through generations of artists,—let him go and look at one of these plays. He will see the choleric East-India uncle, with a red face, and a Malacca cane held by the middle, stumping about, and bullying his nephew,—"a young rascal,"—or his niece,—"you baggage, you." When this young person wishes to have a good talk with a friend, they stand up behind the footlights to do it; and the audience is let into secrets essential to the plot by means of long "asides" delivered by one, while the other does nothing and pretends not to hear what is spoken within three feet of him. The waiting-maid behaves in a way that would get her turned out of any respectable house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be made fools of. After seeing one of these classics, let the spectator sit down and honestly ask himself if this is an attempt to hold the mirror up to Nature, or an effort to reflect the traditional manners and customs of the stage.

If he thinks he has ever seen anything of the sort in real life, we will agree to differ.

OFF SHORE.

Rock, little boat, beneath the quiet sky!

Only the stars behold us, where we lie,—

Only the stars, and yonder brightening moon.

On the wide sea to-night alone are we:

The sweet, bright, summer day dies silently;

Its glowing sunset will have faded soon.

Rock softly, little boat, the while I mark

The far-off gliding sails, distinct and dark,

Across the west pass steadily and slow.

But on the eastern waters sad they change

And vanish, dream-like, gray and cold and strange,

And no one knoweth whither they may go.

We care not, we, drifting with wind and tide,

With glad waves darkening upon every side,

Save where the moon sends silver sparkles down,

And yonder slender stream of changing light,

Now white, now crimson, tremulously bright,

Where dark the light-house stands, with fiery crown.

Thick falls the dew, soundless, on sea and shore;

It shines on little boat and idle oar,

Wherever moonbeams touch with tranquil glow.

The waves are full of whispers wild and sweet;

They call to me; incessantly they beat

Along the boat from stem to curvèd prow.

Comes the careering wind, blows back my hair

All damp with dew, to kiss me unaware,—

Murmuring, "Thee I love,"—and passes on.

Sweet sounds on rocky shores the distant rote.

Oh, could we float forever, little boat,

Under the blissful sky drifting alone!

LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN BRENT."

KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT.

CHAPTER IV.

UMBAGOG.

Rain ends, as even Noah and the Arkites discovered. The new sensation of tickling frogs could entertain us for one day; bounteous Nature provided other novelties for the next. We were at the Umbagog chain of lakes, and while it rained the damster had purveyed us a boat and crew. At sunrise he despatched us on our voyage. We launched upon the Androscoggin, in a bateau of the old Canadian type. Such light, clincher-built, high-nosed, flat-bottomed boats are in use wherever the fur-traders are or have been. Just such boats navigate the Saskatchawan of the North, or Frazer's River of the Northwest; and in a larger counterpart of our Androscoggin bark I had three years before floated down the magnificent Columbia to Vancouver, bedded on bales of beaver-skins.

As soon as sunrise wrote itself in shadows over the sparkling water, as soon as through the river-side belt of gnarled arbor-vitae sunbeams flickered, we pushed off, rowed up-stream by a pair of stout lumbermen. The river was a beautiful way, admitting us into the penetralia of virgin forests. It was not a rude wilderness: all that Northern woods have of foliage, verdurous, slender, delicate, tremulous, overhung our shadowy path, dense as the vines that drape a tropic stream. Every giant tree, every one of the Pinus oligarchy, had been lumbered away: refined sylvan beauty remained. The dam checked the river's turbulence, making it slow and mirror-like. It merited a more melodious name than harsh Androscoggin.

Five miles of such enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot criticize, nor insult, nor compliment Umbagog. Let us deem it beautiful. The sun tried at the fog, to lift it with leverage of his early level beams. Failing in this attempt to stir and heave away the mass, he climbed, and began to use his beams as wedges, driving them down more perpendicularly. Whenever this industrious craftsman made a successful split, the fog gaped, and we could see for a moment, indefinitely, an expanse of water, hedged with gloomy forest, and owning for its dominant height a wild mountain, Aziscohos, or, briefer, Esquihos.

But the fog was still too dense to be riven by slanting sunbeams. It closed again in solider phalanx. Our gray cell shut close about us. Esquihos and the distance became nowhere. In fact, ourselves would have been nowhere, except that a sluggish damp wind puffed sometimes, and steering into this we could guide our way within a few points of our course.

Any traveller knows that it is no very crushing disappointment not to see what he came to see. Outside sights give something, but inside joys are independent. We enjoyed our dim damp voyage heartily, on that wide loneliness. Nor were our shouts and laughter the only sounds. Loons would sometimes wail to us, as they dived, black dots in the mist. Then we would wait for their bulbous reappearance, and let fly the futile shot with its muffled report,—missing, of course.

No being has ever shot a loon, though several have legends of some one who has. Sound has no power to express a profounder emotion of utter loneliness than the loon's cry. Standing in piny darkness on the lake's bank, or floating in dimness of mist or glimmer of twilight on its surface, you hear this wailing note, and all possibility of human tenancy by the shore or human voyaging is annihilated. You can fancy no response to this signal of solitude disturbed, and again it comes sadly over the water, the despairing plaint of some companionless and incomplete existence, exiled from happiness it has never known, and conscious only of blank and utter want. Loon-skins have a commercial value; so it is reported. The Barabinzians of Siberia, a nation "up beyond the River Ob," tan them into water-proof paletots or aquascutums. How they catch their loon, before they skin their loon, is one of the mysteries of that unknown realm.

Og, Gog, Magog, Memphremagog, all agog, Umbagog,—certainly the American Indians were the Lost Tribes, and conserved the old familiar syllables in their new home.

Rowing into the damp breeze, we by-and-by traversed the lake. We had gained nothing but a fact of distance. But here was to be an interlude of interest. The "thoro'fare" linking Umbagog to its next neighbor is no thoro'fare for a bateau, since a bateau cannot climb through breakers over boulders. We must make a "carry," an actual portage, such as in all chronicles of pioneer voyages strike like the excitement of rapids into the monotonous course of easy descent. Another boat was ready on the next lake, but our chattels must go three miles through the woods. Yes, we now were to achieve a portage. Consider it, blasé friend,—was not this sensation alone worth the trip?

The worthy lumbermen, and our supernumerary, the damster's son, staggered along slowly with our traps. Iglesias and I, having nothing to carry, enjoyed the carry. We lounged along through the glades, now sunny for the moment, and dallied with raspberries and blueberries, finer than any ever seen. The latter henceforth began to impurple our blood. Maine is lusciously carpeted with them.

As we oozed along the overgrown trail, dripping still with last night's rain, drops would alight upon our necks and trickle down our backs. A wet spine excites hunger,—if a pedestrian on a portage, after voyaging from sunrise, needs any appetizer when his shadow marks noon. We halted, fired up, and lunched vigorously on toasted pork and trimmings. As pork must be the Omega in forest-fare, it is well to make it the Alpha. Fate thus becomes choice. Citizens uneducated to forest-life with much pains transport into the woods sealed cans of what they deem will dainties be, and scoff at woodsmen frizzling slices of pork on a pointed stick. But Experience does not disdain a Cockney. She broods over him, and will by-and-by hatch him into a full-fledged forester. After such incubation, he will recognize his natural food, and compactest fuel for the lamp of life. He will take to his pork like mother's milk.

Our dessert of raspberries grew all along the path, and lured us on to a log-station by the water, where we found another bateau ready to transport us over Lakes Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, and Mollychunkamug. Doubters may smile and smile at these names, but they are geography.

We do not commit ourselves to further judgment upon the first than that it is doubtless worthy of its name. My own opinion is, that the scenery felt that it was dullish, and was ashamed to "exhibit" to Iglesias; if he pronounced a condemnation, Umbagog and its sisters feared that they would be degraded to fish-ponds merely. Therefore they veiled themselves. Mists hung low over the leaden waters, and blacker clouds crushed the pine-dark hills.

A fair curve of sandy beach separates Weelocksebacook from its neighbor. There is buried one Melattach, an Indian chief. Of course there has been found in Maine some one irreverent enough to trot a lame Pegasus over this grave, and accuse the frowzy old red-skin of Christian virtues and delicate romance.

There were no portages this afternoon. We took the three lakes at easy speed, persuading ourselves that scenes fog would not let us see were unscenic. It is well that a man should think what he cannot get unworthy of his getting. As evening came, the sun made another effort, with the aid of west winds, at the mist. The sun cleft, the breeze drove. Suddenly the battle was done, victory easily gained. We were cheered by a gush of level sunlight. Even the dull, gray vapor became a transfigured and beautiful essence. Dull and uniform it had hung over the land; now the plastic winds quarried it, and shaped the whole mass into individuals, each with its character. To the cloud-forms modelled out of formlessness the winds gave life of motion, sunshine gave life of light, and they hastened through the lower atmosphere, or sailed lingering across the blue breadths of mid-heaven, or dwelt peacefully aloft in the region of the cirri; and whether trailing gauzy robes in flight, or moving stately, or dwelling on high where scope of vision makes travel needless, they were still the brightest, the gracefullest, the purest beings that Earth creates for man's most delicate pleasure.

When it cleared,—when it purveyed us a broadening zone of blue sky and a heavenful of brilliant cloud-creatures, we were sailing over Lake Mollychunkamug. Fair Mollychunkamug had not smiled for us until now;—now a sunny grin spread over her smooth cheeks. She was all smiling, and presently, as the breeze dimpled her, all a "snicker" up into the roots of her hair, up among her forest-tresses. Mollychunkamug! Who could be aught but gay, gay even to the farcical, when on such a name? Is it Indian? Bewildered Indian we deem it,—transmogrified somewhat from aboriginal sound by the fond imagination of some lumberman, finding in it a sweet memorial of his Mary far away in the kitchens of the Kennebec, his Mary so rotund of blooming cheek, his Molly of the chunky mug. To him who truly loves, all Nature is filled with Amaryllidian echoes. Every sight and every sound recalls her who need not be recalled, to a heart that has never dislodged her.

We lingered over our interview with Mollychunkamug. She may not be numbered among the great beauties of the world; nevertheless, she is an attractive squaw,—a very honest bit of flat-faced prettiness in the wilderness.

Above Mollychunkamug is Moosetocmaguntic Lake. Another innavigable thoro'fare unites them. A dam of Titanic crib-work, fifteen hundred feet long, confines the upper waters. Near this we disembarked. We balanced ourselves along the timbers of the dam, and reached a huge log-cabin at its farther end.

Mr. Killgrove, the damster, came forth and offered us the freedom of his settlement in a tobacco-box. Tobacco is hospitality in the compactest form. Civilization has determined that tobacco, especially in the shape of smoke, is essential as food, water, or air. The pipe is everywhere the pipe of peace. Peace, then, and anodyne-repose, after a day of travel, were offered us by the friendly damster.

A squad of lumbermen were our new fellow-citizens. These soldiers of the outermost outpost were in the regulation-uniform,—red-flannel shirts, impurpled by wetting, big boots, and old felt-hats. Blood-red is the true soldierly color. All the residents of Damville dwelt in a great log-barrack, the Hôtel-de-Ville. Its architecture was of the early American style, and possessed the high art of simplicity. It was solid, not gingerbreadesque. Primeval American art has a rude dignity, far better than the sham splendors of our mediaeval and transition period.

Our new friends, luxurious fellows, had been favored by Fate with a French-Canadian cook, himself a Three of Frères Provinciaux. Such was his reputation. We saw by the eye of him, and by his nose, formed for comprehending fragrances, and by the lines of refined taste converging from his whole face toward his mouth, that he was one to detect and sniff gastronomic possibilities in the humblest materials. Joseph Bourgogne looked the cook. His phiz gave us faith in him; eyes small and discriminating; nose upturned, nostrils expanded and receptive; mouth saucy in the literal sense. His voice, moreover, was a cook's,—thick in articulation, dulcet in tone. He spoke as if he deemed that a throat was created for better uses than laboriously manufacturing words,—as if the object of a mouth were to receive tribute, not to give commands,—as if that pink stalactite, his palate, were more used by delicacies entering than by rough words or sorry sighs going out of the inner caverns.

When we find the right man in the right place, our minds are at ease. The future becomes satisfactory as the past. Anticipation is glad certainty, not anxious doubt. Trusting our gastronomic welfare fully to this great artist, we tried for fish below the dam. Only petty fishlings, weighing ounces, took the bit between their teeth. We therefore doffed the fisherman and donned the artist and poet, and chased our own fancies down the dark whirlpooling river, along its dell of evergreens, now lurid with the last glows of twilight. Iglesias and I continued dreamily gazing down the thoro'fare toward Mollychunkamug only a certain length of time. Man keeps up to his highest elations hardly longer than a danseuse can poise in a pose. To be conscious of the highest beauty demands an involuntary intentness of observation so fanatically eager that presently we are prostrated and need stimulants. And just as we sensitively felt this exhaustion and this need, we heard a suggestive voice calling us from the front-door of the mansion-house of Damville, and "Supper" was the cry.

A call to the table may quell and may awaken romance. When, in some abode of poetized luxury, the "silver knell" sounds musically six, and a door opens toward a glitter that is not pewter and Wedgewood, and, with a being fair and changeful as a sunset cloud upon my arm, I move under the archway of blue curtains toward the asphodel and the nectar, then, O Reader! 0 Friend! romance crowds into my heart, as color and fragrance crowd into a rose-bud. Joseph Bourgogne, cook at Damville on Moosetocmaguntic, could not offer us such substitute for aesthetic emotions. But his voice of an artist created a winning picture half veiled with mists, evanescent and affectionate, such as linger fondly over Pork-and-Beans.

Fancied joy soon to become fact. We entered the barrack. Beneath its smoky roof-tree was a pervading aroma; near the centre of that aroma, a table dim with wefts of incense; at the innermost centre of that aroma and that incense, and whence those visible and viewless fountains streamed, was their source,—a Dish of Pork-and-Beans.

Topmostly this. There were lesser viands, buttresses to this towering triumph. Minor smokes from minor censers. A circle of little craterlings about the great crater,—of little fiery cones about that great volcanic dome in the midst, unopened, but bursting with bounty. We sat down, and one of the red-shirted boldly crushed the smoking dome. The brave fellow plunged in with a spoon and heaped our plates.

A priori we had deduced Joseph Bourgogne's results from inspection of Joseph. Now we could reason back from one experimentum crucis cooked by him. Effect and cause were worthy of each other.

The average world must be revenged upon Genius. Greatness must be punished by itself or another. Joseph Bourgogne was no exception to the laws of the misery of Genius. He had a distressing trait, whose exhibition tickled the dura ilia of the reapers of the forest. Joseph, poet-cook, was sensitive to new ideas. This sensitiveness to the peremptory thought made him the slave of the wags of Damville. Whenever he had anything in his hands, at a stern, quick command he would drop it nervously. Did he approach the table with a second dish of pork-and-beans, a yellow dish of beans, browned delicately as a Sèvres vase, then would some full-fed rogue, waiting until Joseph was bending over some devoted head, say sharply, "Drop that, Joseph!"—whereupon down went dish and contents, emporridging the poll and person of the luckless wight beneath. Always, were his burden pitcher of water, armful of wood, axe dangerous to toes, mirror, or pudding, still followed the same result. And when the poet-cook had done the mischief, he would stand shuddering at his work of ruin, and sigh, and curse his too sensitive nature.

In honor of us, the damster kept order. Joseph disturbed the banquet only by entering with new triumphs of Art. Last came a climax-pie,—contents unknown. And when that dish, fit to set before a king, was opened, the poem of our supper was complete. J. B. sailed to the Parnassus where Ude and Vattel feast, forever cooking immortal banquets in star-lighted spheres.

Then we sat in the picturesque dimness of the lofty cabin, under the void where the roof shut off the stars, and talked of the pine-woods, of logging, measuring, and spring-drives, and of moose-hunting on snow-shoes, until our mouths had a wild flavor more spicy than if we had chewed spruce-gum by the hour. Spruce-gum is the aboriginal quid of these regions. Foresters chew this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns at tobacco, or school-girls at a slate-pencil.

The barrack was fitted up with bunks. Iglesias rolled into one of these. I mummied myself in my blankets and did penance upon a bench. Pine-knots in my pallet sought out my tenderest spots. The softer wood was worn away about these projections. Hillocky was the surface, so that I beat about uneasily and awoke often, ready to envy Iglesias. But from him, also, I heard sounds of struggling.

CHAPTER V.

UP THE LAKES.

Mr. Killgrove, slayer of forests, became the pilot of our voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a bateau, while Joseph Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout. We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout drooped like a defeated banner.

"A fine lake," remarked Iglesias, instituting the matutinal conversation in a safe and general way.

"Yes," returned Mr. Killgrove, "when you come to get seven or eight feet more of water atop of this in spring, it is considerable of a puddle."

Our weather seemed to be now bettering with more resolution. Many days had passed since Aurora had shown herself,—many days since the rising sun and the world had seen each other. But yesterday this sulky estrangement ended, and, after the beautiful reconciliation at sunset, the faint mists of doubt in their brief parting for a night had now no power against the ardors of anticipated meeting. As we shot out upon the steaming water, the sun was just looking over the lower ridges of a mountain opposite. Air, blue and quivering, hung under shelter of the mountain-front, as if a film from the dim purple of night were hiding there to see what beauty day had, better than its own. The gray fog, so dreary for three mornings, was utterly vanquished; all was vanished, save where "swimming vapors sloped athwart the glen," and "crept from pine to pine." These had dallied, like spies of a flying army, to watch for chances of its return; but they, too, carried away by the enthusiasms of a world liberated and illumined, changed their allegiance, joined the party of hope and progress, and added the grace of their presence to the fair pageant of a better day.

Lake Moosetocmaguntic is good,—above the average. If its name had but two syllables, and the thing named were near Somewhere, poetry and rhetoric would celebrate it, and the world would be prouder of itself for another "gem." Now nobody sees it, and those who do have had their anticipations lengthened leagues by every syllable of its sesquipedalian title. One expects, perhaps, something more than what he finds. He finds a good average sheet of water, set in a circlet of dark forest,—forests sloping up to wooded hills, and these to wooded mountains. Very good and satisfactory elements, and worth notice,—especially when the artistic eye is also a fisherman's eye, and he detects fishy spots. As to wilderness, there can be none more complete. At the upper end of the lake is a trace of humanity in a deserted cabin on a small clearing. There a hermit pair once lived,—man and wife, utterly alone for fifteen years,—once or twice a year, perhaps, visited by lumbermen. Fifteen years alone with a wife! a trial, certainly,—not necessarily in the desponding sense of the word; not as Yankees have it, making trial a misfortune, but a test.

Mr. Killgrove entertained us with resinous-flavored talk. The voyage was unexcitingly pleasant. We passed an archipelago of scrubby islands, and, turning away from a blue vista of hills northward, entered a lovely curve of river richly overhung with arbor-vitae, a shadowy quiet reach of clear water, crowded below its beautiful surface with reflected forest and reflected sky.

"Iglesias," said I, "we divined how Mollychunkamug had its name; now, as to Moosetocmaguntic,—hence that elongated appellative?"

"It was named," replied Iglesias, "from the adventure of a certain hunter in these regions. He was moose-hunting here in days gone by. His tale runs thus:—'I had been four days without game, and naturally without anything to eat except pine-cones and green chestnuts. There was no game in the forest. The trout would not bite, for I had no tackle and no hook. I was starving. I sat me down, and rested my trusty, but futile rifle against a fallen tree. Suddenly I heard a tread, turned my head, saw a Moose,—took—my—gun,—tick! he was dead. I was saved. I feasted, and in gratitude named the lake Moosetookmyguntick.' Geography has modified it, but the name cannot be misunderstood."

We glided up the fair river, and presently came to the hut of Mr. Smith, fisherman and misogynist. And there is little more to be said about Mr. Smith. He appears in this chronicle because he owned a boat which became our vehicle on Lake Oquossok, Aquessok, Lakewocket, or Rangeley. Mr. Smith guided us across the carry to the next of the chain of lakes, and embarked us in a crazy skiff. It was blowing fresh, and, not to be wrecked, we coasted close to the gnarled arbor-vitae thickets. Smith sogered along, drawling dull legends of trout-fishing.

"Drefful notional critturs traout be," he said,—"olluz bitin' atwhodger haänt got. Orful contrairy critturs,—jess like fimmls. Yer can cotch a fimml with a feather, ef she's ter be cotched; ef she haänt ter be cotched, yer may scoop ther hul world dry an' yer haänt got her. Jess so traout."

The misogynist bored us with his dull philosophy. The buffetings of inland waves were not only insulting, but dangerous, to our leaky punt. At any moment, Iglesias and I might find ourselves floundering together in thin fresh water. Joyfully, therefore, at last, did we discern clearings, culture, and habitations at the lake-head. There was no tavernous village of Rangeley; that would have been too great a contrast, after the forest and the lakes, where loons are the only disturbers of silence,—incongruity enough to overpower utterly the ringing of woodland music in our hearts. Rangeley was a townless township, as the outermost township should be. We had, however, learnt from Killgrove, feller of forests, that there was a certain farmer on the lake, one of the chieftains of that realm, who would hospitably entertain us. Smith, wheedler of trout, landed us in quite an ambitious foamy surf at the foot of a declivity below our future host's farm.

We had now traversed Lakes Umbagog, Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, Mollychunkamug, Moosetocmaguntic, and Oquossok.

We had been compelled to pronounce these names constantly. Of course our vocal organs were distorted. Of course our vocal nervous systems were shattered, and we had a chronic lameness of the jaws. We therefore recognized a peculiar appropriateness in the name of our host.

Toothaker was his name. He dwelt upon the lawn-like bank, a hundred feet above the lake. Mr. Toothaker himself was absent, but his wife received us hospitably, disposed us in her guest-chamber, and gratified us with a supper.

This was Rangeley Township, the outer settlement on the west side of Maine. A "squire" from England gave it his name. He bought the tract, named it, inhabited several years, a popular squire-arch, and then returned from the wild to the tame, from pine woods and stumpy fields to the elm-planted hedge-rows and shaven lawns of placid England. The local gossip did not reveal any cause for Mr. Rangeley's fondness for contrasts and exile.

Mr. Toothaker has been a careful dentist to the stumps of his farm. It is beautifully stumpless, and slopes verdantly, or varied with yellow harvest, down to the lake and up to the forest primeval. He has preserved a pretty grove of birch and maple as shelter, ornament, partridge-cover, and perpendicular wood-pile. Below his house and barns is the lovely oval of the lake, seen across the fair fields, bright with wheat, or green with pasture. A road, hedged with briskly-aspiring young spruces, runs for a mile northward, making a faint show at attacking the wilderness. A mile's loneliness is enough for this unsupported pioneer; he runs up a tree, sees nothing but dark woods, thinks of Labrador and the North Pole, and stops.

Next morning, Mr. Toothaker returned from a political meeting below among the towns. It was the Presidential campaign,—stirring days from pines to prairies, stirring days from codfish to cocoanuts. Tonguey men were talking from every stump all over the land. Blatant patriots were heard, wherever a flock of compatriots could be persuaded to listen. The man with one speech containing two stories was making the tour of all the villages. The man with two speeches, each with three stories, one of them very broad indeed, was in request for the towns. The oratorical Stentorian man, with inexhaustible rivers of speech and rafts of stories, was in full torrent at mass-meetings. There was no neighborhood that might not see and hear an M. C. But Rangeley had been the minus town, and by all the speech-makers really neglected; there was danger that its voters must deposit their ballots according to their own judgment, without any advice from strangers. This, of course, would never do. Mr. Toothaker found that we fraternized in politics. He called upon us, as patriots, to become the orators of the day. Why not? Except that these seldom houses do not promise an exhilarating crowd. We promised, however, that, if he would supply hearers, we between us would find a speaker.

Mr. Toothaker called a nephew, and charged him to boot and saddle, and flame it through the country-side that two "Men from New York" were there, and would give a "Lecture on Politics," at the Red School-House, at five, that evening.

And to the Red School-House, at five, crowded the men, ay, and the women and children, of Rangeley and thereabout. They came as the winds and waves come when forests and navies are rended and stranded. Horse, foot, and charioteers, they thronged toward the rubicund fountain of education. From houses that lurked invisible in clearings suddenly burst forth a population, an audience ardent with patriotism, eager for politics even from a Cockney interpreter, and numerous enough to stir electricity in a speaker's mind. Some of the matrons brought bundles of swaddled infants, to be early instructed in good citizenship; but too often these young patriots were found to have but crude notions on the subject of applause, and they were ignominiously removed, fighting violently for their privilege of free speech, doubling their unterrified fists, and getting as red in the face as the school-house.

Mr. Toothaker, in a neat speech, introduced the orator, who took his stand in the schoolmaster's pulpit, and surveyed his stalwart and gentle hearers, filling the sloping benches and overflowing out-of-doors. Gaffer and gammer, man and maiden, were distributed, the ladies to the right of the aisle, the gentlemen to the left. They must not be in contact,—perhaps because gaffer will gossip with gammer, and youth and maid will toy. Dignity demanded that they should be distinct as the conservative Right and radical Left of a French Assembly, Convenient, this, for the orator; since thus his things of beauty, joys forever, he could waft, in dulcet tones, over to the ladies' side, and his things of logic, tough morsels for life-long digestion, he could jerk, like bolts from an arbalist, over at the open mouths of gray gaffer and robust man.

I am not about to report the orator's speech. Stealing another's thunder is an offence punishable condignly ever since the days of Salmoneus. Perhaps, too, he may wish to use the same eloquent bits in the present Olympiad; for American life is measured by Olympiads, signalized by nobler contests than the petty States of Greece ever knew.

The people of Rangeley disappeared as mysteriously as they had emerged from the woods, having had their share of the good or bad talk of that year of freedom. If political harangues educate, the educated class was largely recruited that that summer.

Next day, again, was stormy. We stayed quietly under shelter, preparing for our real journey after so much prelude. The Isaac Newton's steam-whistle had sent up the curtain; the overture had followed with strains Der-Frei-schutzy in the Adirondacks, pastoral in the valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire, funebral and andante in the fogs of Mollychunkamug; now it was to end in an allegretto gallopade, and the drama would open.

At last the sun shone bright upon the silky ripples of the lake. Mr. Toothaker provided two buggies,—one for himself and our traps, one for Iglesias and me. We rattled away across county and county. And so at full speed we drove all day, and, with a few hours' halt, all night,—all a fresh, starry night,—until gay sunrise brought us to Skowhegan, on the road to Moosehead Lake.

As we had travelled all night, breakfast must be our substitute for slumber. Repletion, instead of repose, must restore us. Two files of red-shirted lumbermen, brandishing knives at each other across a long table, only excited us to livelier gymnastics; and when we had thus hastily crammed what they call in Maine beefsteak, and what they infuse down East for coffee, we climbed to the top of a coach of the bounding-billow motion, and went pitching northward.

Two facts we learned from our coachman: one, that we were passing that day through a "pretty sassy country"; also, that the same region was "only meant to hold the world together." Personal "sassiness" is a trait of which every Yankee is proud; Iglesias and I both venture to hope that we appreciate the value of that quality, and have properly cultivated it. Topographical "sassiness," unmodified by culture and control, is a rude, rugged, and unattractive trait; and New England is, on the whole, "sassier" than I could wish. Let the dullish day's drive, then, be passed over dumbly. In the evening, we dismounted at Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BIRCH.

The rivers of Maine, as a native observed to me, "olluz spread 'mselves inter bulges." Mollychunkamug and her fellows are the bulges of the Androscoggin; Moosehead, of the Kennebec. Sluggish streams do not need such pauses. Peace is thrown away upon stolidity. The torrents of Maine are hasty young heroes, galloping so hard when they gallop, and charging with such rash enthusiasm when they charge, hurrying with such Achillean ardor toward their eternity of ocean, that they would never know the influence, in their heart of hearts, of blue cloudlessness, or the glory of noonday, or the pageantries of sunset,—they would only tear and rive and shatter carelessly. Nature, therefore, provides valleys for the streams to bulge in, and entertain celestial reflections.

Nature, arranging lake-spots as educational episodes for the Maine rivers, disposes them also with a view to utility. Mr. Killgrove and his fellow-lumbermen treat lakes as log-puddles and raft-depots. Moosehead is the most important of these, and keeps a steamboat for tugging rafts and transporting raftsmen.

Moosehead also provides vessels far dearer to the heart of the adventurous than anything driven by steam. Here, mayhap, will an untravelled traveller make his first acquaintance with the birch-bark canoe, and learn to call it by the affectionate diminutive, "Birch." Earlier in life there was no love lost between him and whatever bore that name. Even now, if the untravelled one's first acquaintance be not distinguished by an unlovely ducking, so much the worse. The ducking must come. Caution must be learnt by catastrophe. No one can ever know how unstable a thing is a birch canoe, unless he has felt it slide away from under his misplaced feet. Novices should take nude practice in empty birches, lest they spill themselves and the load of full ones,—a wondrous easy thing to do.

A birch canoe is the right thing in the right place. Maine's rivers are violently impulsive and spasmodic in their running. Sometimes you have a foamy rapid, sometimes a broad shoal, sometimes a barricade of boulders with gleams of white water springing through or leaping over its rocks. Your boat for voyaging here must be stout enough to buffet the rapid, light enough to skim the shallow, agile enough to vault over, or lithe enough to slip through, the barricade. Besides, sometimes the barricade becomes a compact wall,—a baffler, unless boat and boatmen can circumvent it,—unless the nautical carriage can itself be carried about the obstacle,—can be picked up, shouldered, and made off with.

A birch meets all these demands. It lies, light as a leaf, on whirlpooling surfaces. A tip of the paddle can turn it into the eddy beside the breaker. A check of the setting-pole can hold it steadfast on the brink of wreck. Where there is water enough to varnish the pebbles, there it will glide. A birch thirty feet long, big enough for a trio and their traps, weighs only seventy-five pounds. When the rapid passes into a cataract, when the wall of rock across the stream is impregnable in front, it can be taken in the flank by an amphibious birch. The navigator lifts his canoe out of water, and bonnets himself with it. He wears it on head and shoulders, around the impassable spot. Below the rough water, he gets into his elongated chapeau and floats away. Without such vessel, agile, elastic, imponderable, and transmutable, Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Penobscot would be no thoro'fares for human beings. Musquash might dabble, chips might drift, logs might turn somersets along their lonely currents; but never voyager, gentle or bold, could speed through brilliant perils, gladdening the wilderness with shout and song.

Maine's rivers must have birch canoes; Maine's woods, of course, therefore, provide birches. The white-birch, paper-birch, canoe-birch, grows large in moist spots near the stream where it is needed. Seen by the flicker of a campfire at night, they surround the intrusive traveller like ghosts of giant sentinels. Once, Indian tribes with names that "nobody can speak and nobody can spell" roamed these forests. A stouter second growth of humanity has ousted them, save a few seedy ones who gad about the land, and centre at Oldtown, their village near Bangor. These aborigines are the birch-builders. They detect by the river-side the tree barked with material for canoes. They strip it, and fashion an artistic vessel, which civilization cannot better. Launched in the fairy lightness of this, and speeding over foamy waters between forest-solitudes, one discovers, as if he were the first to know it, the truest poetry of pioneer-life.

Such poetry Iglesias had sung to me, until my life seemed incomplete while I did not know the sentiment by touch, description, even from the most impassioned witness, addressed to the most imaginative hearer, is feeble. We both wanted to be in a birch: Iglesias, because he knew the fresh, inspiring vivacity of such a voyage; I, because I divined it. We both needed to be somewhere near the heart of New England's wildest wilderness. We needed to see Katahdin,—the distinctest mountain to be found on this side of the continent. Katahdin was known to Iglesias. He had scuffled up its eastern land-slides with a squad of lumbermen. He had birched it down to Lake Chesuncook in by-gone summers, to see Katahdin distant. Now, in a birch we would slide down the Penobscot, along its line of lakes, camp at Katahdin, climb it, and speed down the river to tide-water.

That was the great object of all our voyage with its educating preludes,—Katahdin and a breathless dash down the Penobscot. And while we flashed along the gleam of the river, Iglesias fancied he might see the visible, and hear the musical, and be stirred by the beautiful. These, truly, are not far from the daily life of any seer, listener, and perceiver; but there, perhaps, up in the strong wilderness, we might be recreated to a more sensitive vitality. The Antaean treatment is needful for terrestrials, unless they would dwindle. The diviner the power in any artist-soul, the more distinctly is he commanded to get near the divine without him. Fancies pale, that are not fed on facts. It is very easy for any man to be a plagiarist from himself, and present his own reminiscences half disguised, instead of new discoveries. Now, up by Katahdin, there were new discoveries to be made; and that mountain would sternly eye us, to know whether Iglesias were a copyist, or I a Cockney.

Katahdin was always in its place up in the woods. The Penobscot was always buzzing along toward the calm reaches, where it takes the shadow of the mountain. All we needed was the birch.

The birch thrust itself under our noses as we drove into Greenville. It was mounted upon a coach that preceded us, and wabbled oddly along, like a vast hat upon a dwarf. We talked with its owner, as he dismounted it. He proved our very man. He and his amphibious canoe had just made the trip we proposed, with a flotilla. Certain Bostonians had essayed it,—vague Northmen, preceding our Columbus voyage.

Enter now upon the scene a new and important character, Cancut the canoe-man. Mr. Cancut, owner and steerer of a birch, who now became our "guide, philosopher, and friend," is as American as a birch, as the Penobscot, or as Katahdin's self. Cancut was a jolly fatling,—almost too fat, if he will pardon me, for sitting in the stern of the imponderable canoe. Cancut, though for this summer boatman or bircher, had other strings to his bow. He was taking variety now, after employment more monotonous. Last summer, his services had been in request throughout inhabited Maine, to "peddle gravestones and collect bills." The Gravestone-Peddler is an institution of New England. His wares are wanted, or will be wanted, by every one. Without discriminating the bereaved households, he presents himself at any door, with attractive drawings of his wares, and seduces people into paying the late tribute to their great-grandfather, or laying up a monument for themselves against the inevitable day of demand. His customers select from his samples a tasteful "set of stones"; and next summer he drives up and unloads the marble, with the names well spelt, and the cherub's head artistically chiselled by the best workmen of Boston. Cancut told us, as an instance of judicious economy, how, when he called once upon a recent widow to ask what he could do in his line for her deceased husband's tomb, she chose from his patterns neat head- and foot-stones for the dear defunct, and then bargained with him to throw in a small pair for her boy Johnny,—a poor, sick crittur, that would be wanting his monument long before next summer.

This lugubrious business had failed to infect Mr. Cancut with corresponding deportment. Undertakers are always sombre in dreary mockery of woe. Sextons are solemncholy, if not solemn. I fear Cancut was too cheerful for his trade, and therefore had abandoned it.

Such was our guide, the captain, steersman, and ballaster of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry only the simplest baggage of a trio. Passengers who are constantly to make portages will not encumber themselves with what-nots. Man must have clothes for day and night, and must have provisions to keep his clothes properly filled out. These two articles we took in compact form, regretting even the necessity of guarding against a ducking by a change of clothes. Our provision, that unrefined pork and hard tack, presently to be converted into artist and friend, was packed with a few delicacies in a firkin,—a commodious case, as we found.

A little steamer plies upon the lake, doing lumber-jobs, and not disdaining the traveller's dollars. Upon this, one August morning, we embarked ourselves and our frail birch, for our voyage to the upper end of Moosehead. Iglesias, in a red shirt, became a bit of color in the scene. I, in a red shirt, repeated the flame. Cancut, outweighing us both together, in a broader red shirt, outglared us both. When we three met, and our scarlet reflections commingled, there was one spot in the world gorgeous as a conclave of cardinals, as a squad of British grenadiers, as a Vermont maple-wood in autumn.

RIFLE-CLUBS.

A sense of the importance of rifle-practice is becoming very generally prevalent. Rifle-clubs are organizing in our country-towns, and target-practice by individuals is increasing to a degree which proves incontestably the interest which is felt in the subject. The chief obstacle to the immediate and extensive practical operation of this interest lies in the difficulty of procuring serviceable guns, except at such a cost as places them beyond the reach of the majority of those who would be glad to make themselves familiar with their use. Except in occasional instances, it is impossible to procure a trustworthy rifle for a less price than forty or fifty dollars. We believe, however, that the competition which has already become very active between rival manufacturers will erelong effect a material reduction of price; and we trust also that our legislators will perceive the necessity of adopting a strict military organization of all the able-bodied men in the State, and providing them with weapons, with whose use they should be encouraged to make themselves familiar—apart from military drill and instruction—by the institution of public shooting-matches for prizes. The absolute necessity of stringent laws, in order to secure the attainment of anything worthy the name of military education and discipline, has been clearly proved by the experience of the drill-clubs which sprang into existence in such numbers last year. To say, that, as a general rule, the moral strength of the community is not sufficient to enable a volunteer association to sustain for any great length of time the severe and irksome details which are inseparable from the attainment of thorough military discipline, is no more a reflection upon the class to which the remark is applied than would be the equally true assertion that their physical strength is not equal to the performance of the work of an ordinary day-laborer. Under the pressure of necessity, both moral and physical strength might be forced and kept up to the required standard; but the mere conviction of expediency is not enough to secure its development, unless enforced by such laws as will insure universal and systematic action. A voluntary association for military instruction may be commenced with a zeal which will carry its members for a time through the daily routine of drilling; but it will not be long before the ranks will begin to diminish, and the observance of discipline become less strict; and if the officers attempt to enforce the laws by which all have agreed to abide, those laws will speedily be rescinded by the majority who find them galling, and the tie by which they are bound together will prove a rope of sand.

With the return of the troops who are now acquiring military knowledge in the best of all possible schools, we shall possess the necessary material for executing whatever system may be decided upon as best for the military education of the people; but meantime we may lay the foundation for it, and take the most efficient means of securing legislative action, by the immediate organization of rifle-clubs for target-practice throughout the State. These clubs may be commenced very informally by a simple agreement among those who are interested and are provided, or will provide themselves, with weapons, to meet together at stated intervals for target-practice, which should be conducted according to the rules which have been found most effectual for securing good marksmanship. The mere interest of competition will be sufficient to insure private practice in the intervals; and if properly and respectably conducted, the interest will increase till it becomes general, and the target-ground will become a central object of attraction.

We earnestly invite the attention not only of all who are impressed with the necessity of inculcating a thorough practical knowledge of the use of weapons, as a measure of national interest, but of all who are interested in the subject of physical, and we may add, moral education, to the field which is here opened, and which, if not improved, as it may be, for noble and useful ends, will certainly be perverted for low and immoral purposes.

The interest which is beginning to be awakened in rifle-practice is the germ of a great movement, which it is the duty of all who have the national welfare at heart to use their influence in guiding and directing, as may easily be done, so that only good may result from it. Let it be countenanced and encouraged by the men, in every community, whose words and example give tone to public opinion, and it will become, as it ought, a means of health-giving and generous rivalry, while it infuses a sense of national power, which we, of all people on earth, ought to derive from the consciousness that it is based upon the physical ability of the people to maintain their own rights. If, however, it is frowned upon and sneered at, as unworthy the attention of a morally and intellectually cultivated people, we shall draw upon ourselves the curse of creating a sin,—of poisoning at its source a fountain whose elements in themselves are not only innocent, but abounding in the best ingredients for the development of manly physical and intellectual character.

We trust, however, that such a caution is unnecessary. If there are any among us who, after the past year's experience, can look with doubt or coldness upon such a movement as we have indicated, we should hardly care to waste words in arguing the point. That such a feeling should have heretofore existed is not, perhaps, surprising. The possibility of such an emergency as has come upon us has seemed so improbable, not to say impossible, that it has appeared like a waste of time and labor to prepare for it; and the result has been, that we had come to look upon military education with much the same feeling as that with which we regard the pugilistic art, as of questionable, if not decidedly disreputable character, and such as a nation of our respectability could by no possibility have occasion for.

From this dream of security we have been unexpectedly and very disagreeably awakened, by finding ourselves engaged in a war whose magnitude we were at first slow to appreciate; and it was not till we found ourselves ominously threatened by a foreign power, while still engaged in a fearful struggle at home, that we seemed to be fully aroused to the necessity of being at all times prepared for defence.

Then there came over us a universal consciousness of undeveloped strength,—the feeling of a powerful man, who knows nothing of "the noble art of self-defence," at finding himself suddenly confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes that the occasion may serve as a precedent for Mr. Bully himself to avoid the corns of his neighbors for the future.

It is comparatively but few years since the success of Colonel Colt in the application of the repeating principle to fire-arms was regarded as a feat in which every American felt a national pride. It was such a vast improvement upon anything which had previously existed, and the importance of it was so obvious, that it became as much a matter of necessity to the whole civilized world as iron-clad steamers have become since the demonstration of their power which was given by the performances of the Merrimack and the Monitor. And, indeed, the best evidence of the universal acknowledgment of this fact is afforded by the innumerable imitations and attempts at improvement which have since made their appearance at home and abroad.

We have used Colt's 51-inch rifle, and also his rifled carbine, very freely, and tested them thoroughly for range, precision, penetration, and capacity for continued service, and for our own use in hunting are entirely satisfied with the performance of this rifle, and should be at a loss to imagine any possible demand of a hunter's weapon which it would fail to meet.

An able and interesting article on "Rifled Guns" in the "Atlantic Monthly" for October, 1859, has the following passage: "No breech-loading gun is so trustworthy in its execution as a muzzle-loader; for, in spite of all precautions, the bullets will go out irregularly. We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe's rifle from the target, which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no other breech-loader so little likely to err in this respect."

We cannot speak of Sharpe's rifle from our own experience, but from one of the best riflemen of our acquaintance we have heard the same report,—that the cones will occasionally turn and strike sidewise. We do not believe, however, that this fault is a necessary consequence of the peculiar method of loading; but, whatever may be the cause, with Colt's rifle the evil does not exist. For the past year we have practised with it at ranges of from fifty to six hundred yards, and have fired something like two thousand rounds; and only three balls have struck the target sidewise, two of which were ricochets, and the third struck a limb of a bush a few feet in front of the target. In no other instance has the shot failed to cut a perfectly true round hole, and these exceptions would of course be equally applicable to any gun. With the latest pattern of Colt's rifle we have never known an instance of a premature discharge of either of the chambers; though, from the repeated inquiries which have been made, it is obvious that such is the general apprehension. In reply to the common assertion, that much of the explosive force must be lost by escape of gas between the chamber and the barrel, we simply state the fact that we have repeatedly shot through nine inches of solid white cedar timber at forty yards. Finally, at two hundred yards, we find no difficulty in making an average of five inches from the centre, in ten successive shots, of which eight inches is the extreme variation. This is good enough for any ordinary purposes of hunting or military service,—for anything, in short, but gambling or fancy work; and for our own use, against either man or beast, we should ask no better weapon. But we should be very far from advocating its general adoption in military service; and, indeed, our own experience with it has brought the conviction that the repeating principle in any form is decidedly objectionable in guns for the use of ordinary troops of the line. We do not extend the objection to pistols in their proper place, but speak now solely of rifles in the hands of infantry.

In action, the time of each soldier must of necessity be divided between the processes of loading and firing; and it is better that these should come in regular alternate succession than that a series of rapid shots should be succeeded by the longer interval required for inserting a number of charges. It would be hard to assign definitely the most important reasons for this conviction, which are based upon, elements that prevail so generally in the moral and physical characters of men, and which we have so often seen developed in the excitement of hunting large game, that we can readily appreciate the motives which have made sagacious military men very shy of trusting miscellaneous bodies of soldiers with a weapon whose possible advantages are more than counterbalanced by the probable mischief that must ensue from the want of such instinctive power of manipulation as could result only from constant and long-continued familiarity, and which even then might be paralyzed in very many instances by nervous excitement.

We would not, however, be understood as condemning breech-loading guns for military service. On the contrary, we are firm in the conviction that they are destined to supersede entirely every species of muzzle-loaders, which will thenceforward be regarded only as curious evidences of the difficulty of making an advance of a single step, which, when taken, seems so simple that it appears incredible that it was not thought of before. The ingenuity of thousands of our most skilful men is now turned in this direction, and stimulated by a demand which will obviously insure a fortune to the successful competitor. The advantages of a breech-loading gun consist in the greater rapidity with which it can be loaded and fired, and the avoidance of the exposure incident to the motions of drawing the ramrod and ramming the cartridge. We are well aware that rapid firing is in itself an evil, and that a common complaint with officers is that the men will not take time enough in aiming to insure efficiency; but granting this, it by no means follows that the evil will be increased by the ability to load rapidly. Its remedy lies in thorough discipline and practical knowledge of the use of the gun; and the soldier will be more likely to take time for aiming, if he knows he can be ready to repeat his shot almost instantly.

The contingencies of actual service demand the use of different kinds of guns to suit the different circumstances which may arise. In rifle-pits, against batteries, or for picking off artillerymen through the embrasures of a fort, the telescope-rifle has established its reputation beyond all question during the war in which we are now engaged. In repeated instances the enemy's batteries have been effectually kept silent by the aid of this weapon, till counter-works could be established, which could by no possibility have been constructed but for such assistance. During the siege of Yorktown, especially, the fact is historical that the Confederates acquired such a dread of these weapons that they forced their negroes to the work of serving the guns, which they did not dare attempt themselves, and our men were reluctantly compelled, in self-defence, to pick off the poor fellows who were unwillingly opposed to them. In more than one instance after an engagement, members of the "Andrew Sharp-shooters" have indicated precisely the spot where their victims would be found, and the exact position of the bullet-holes which had caused their death; for with the telescope-rifle the question is not, whether an enemy shall be hit, but what particular feature of his face, or which button of his coat shall be the target. That this is no exaggeration may be easily proved by the indisputable evidence of hundreds of targets, every shot in which may be covered by the palm of the hand, though fired from a distance at which no unassisted eye could possibly discern the object aimed at.

But the telescope-rifle is utterly useless, except for special service. The great body of infantry comprised in an army must be provided with guns whose general appearance and character admit of no essential variation from the standard which experience has proved to be the best for the wants of the service.

We have given our objections to the whole class of repeating guns in what we have said of Colt's rifles; and we proceed to note the defects of other breech-loading guns, some of which would constitute no ground of objection to the sportsman, but are inadmissible in the soldier's gun. It is, of course, essential that any breech-loading gun which is offered for introduction in the army should be at least equal in range, penetration, and precision, to the best muzzle-loader now in use. It must be so simple in its construction and mode of operation that its manipulation may readily become an instinctive action, requiring no exercise of thought or judgment to guard against errors which might effect a derangement,—for a large portion of any miscellaneous body of men would be found incapable of exercising such judgment in the excitement of action. The limbs and joints comprised in the arrangement for introducing the charge at the breech must not only be so simple as to avoid the danger of making mistakes in their use, but of such strength as will bear the rough usage incident to field-service. They must, of course, make a perfectly tight joint, and there must be no possibility of their becoming clogged by fouling, so as to affect the facility with which they are worked. And finally, it is vitally important that no special ammunition be required, a failure in the supply of which may render the weapon useless.

As this last objection would rule out the whole class of guns requiring metallic cartridges, and as there are undeniable advantages connected with their use, we deem it necessary to give our reasons for this decision somewhat at length. The cartridges are made of copper and filled with powder, and the ball being inserted in the end, they are compressed about its base so as to render them perfectly water-tight. The fulminating powder, being in the base of the cartridge, is exploded by the blow of the hammer, which falls directly upon it. The advantages are, that there is no escape of gas, and no liability of injury from water; and experience has abundantly proved the excellence of the system in the essential qualities of precision and force. The most obvious objection to them is the one above alluded to. The cartridges must, of necessity, be made by special machinery, and can be supplied only from the manufactory. To this it is replied, that the same objection may be urged against the use of percussion-caps. We grant it; and if it were possible to dispense with them, it would be an obvious gain. But because we must have caps, in spite of their disadvantages, it does not follow that we should increase unnecessarily the equipments against which the same objection exists in a much greater degree, owing to the more intricate process of manufacture and the very much greater difficulty of transportation. The additional weight for the soldier to carry, also, is no trifle, and will not be overlooked by those who appreciate the importance of every ounce that is saved. But apart from minor objections, a fatal one lies in the fact that every cartridge-box filled with this ammunition may be considered as a shell liable to explode by concussion and spread destruction around it. The powder and fulminating composition being always in contact in every cartridge, it is obvious that a chance shot may explode the whole boxful; and we have proved by experiment that this is not an imaginary danger.

Since the appearance of our previous article on "The Use of the Rifle," our attention has been called to several new inventions for breech-loading, some of them exceedingly ingenious and curious, but only one of which has at once commended itself as being so obviously and distinctly an improvement as to induce a further test of its powers, and has proved on trial so entirely efficient, and free from the faults which seemed to be inseparable from the system, as to lead to the belief, which we confidently express, that its general adoption as a military weapon must be a necessary consequence of its becoming known.

As a full description and report of the trial of this gun has been officially prepared by a commission appointed for the purpose, and will probably be published, we shall only say of it here that its performance is equal in all respects to that of the best muzzle-loader, and, while possessing all the advantages, it is entirely free from any of the objections which pertain in one form or another to every breech-loading gun we have heretofore had an opportunity to inspect. In appearance it is so nearly like the ordinary soldier's musket that the difference can be perceived only on examination; and, indeed, it may be used as a muzzle-loader either with a cartridge or with loose powder and ball. It is so simple in its mode of operation that there is less danger of error than with a muzzle-loader; yet the anatomical construction of the limbs and joints secures a degree of strength equal to that of a solid mass of iron. The force of the explosion causes so perfect a closing of the joint as to prevent any possible escape of gas, yet the breech may be removed by as simple a process as that of cocking the gun; and we have in the course of experiment fired the gun three hundred times, and have since seen it fired five hundred times, without once wiping or cleaning, and the working of the joints was as easy and the shooting as good at the last as at first.

It is a singular fact in the history of arms, that the successive improvements in their construction have occurred at long intervals, and have made but slow progress towards general adoption even when their advantages were apparent. It was more than a century after muskets were first used in war before they were introduced in the English army to the exclusion of bows and arrows; more than fifty years passed after the invention of flint-locks before they were substituted for match-locks; and many years elapsed after the invention of the percussion-lock before it came into general use.

It is probable that the introduction of breech-loading guns will be proportionally slow. A distinguished English military writer says: "With respect to the choice between muzzle-loaders and breech-loaders, I am quite satisfied that the latter will eventually carry the day. The best principles of construction may not yet have been discovered; but I have no more doubt of their advantage over the muzzle-loaders than I have of the superiority of the percussion—over flint-lock guns."

We coincide entirely in this opinion, and we have a very strong feeling of confidence that the gun we have alluded to is destined to achieve the consummation here predicted.

For clubs which propose to combine a military drill with target-practice, it is of course essential that the guns should be of uniform pattern. But in our country-towns, until some definite system of military organization is established by law, it is not likely that volunteer associations will be formed for anything more than the object of perfecting themselves in marksmanship. Great numbers of able-bodied men may be found in every community, who will be very ready to join associations to meet at stated intervals for simple target-practice, but who could not afford the time which would necessarily be required for the attainment of anything like efficient discipline as soldiers. For such associations it is not only unimportant that the arms should be of uniform pattern, but a diversity is even desirable, as affording the means of testing their comparative merits, and thus giving the members the opportunity of learning from actual observation the governing principles of the science of projectiles.

It is essential, however, to the attainment of any proper degree of skill in the use of the rifle that it should be acquired systematically. Experience has proved to the instructors at the Hythe School, that, "the less practice the pupil has previously had with the rifle, the better shot he is likely in a limited period to become; for, in shooting, bad habits of any kind are difficult to eradicate, and such is the Hythe system that it does not admit of being grafted upon any other. Those who have been zealously engaged in maturing it have left nothing to chance; they have ascertained by innumerable trials the best way in which every minute portion of the task to be executed should be performed, and no deviation, however slight, should be attempted from the directions laid down. By rigid adherence to them, far more than average proficiency in shooting is attainable without the expenditure of a single ball-cartridge. Paradoxical as this may seem, it is nevertheless strictly true. It is only, however, to be accomplished by a course of aiming and position drill."[2]

We have seen too many instances of poor shooting by men who passed for good riflemen, owing to ignorance of principles whose observance would alone enable them to adapt their practice to varying circumstances, to have any doubt of the important truth contained in the above extract; and we would urge its careful consideration and a compliance with its suggestions upon every association of riflemen.

With all the instruction which can be got from books and teachers, however, it is only by constant practice that one can attain the degree of skill which inspires entire confidence in his capacity to develop the best powers of the rifle. It seems a very simple thing to bring the line of sight upon the target, and to pull the trigger at the right moment; but, in reality, it is what no man can do without continued practice, and he who has attained the power will confirm the assertion that the art of doing it is indescribable, and must be acquired by every man for himself.

For the sake of first becoming familiar with the powers of the weapon, we advise beginners to practise for a time with a rest. This should be a bag of sand, or some equally inelastic substance, on which the gun can repose firmly and steadily; and a little practice with such aid will enable the shooter to realize the relation of the line of sight to the trajectory under varying circumstances of wind and light, and thus to proceed knowingly in his subsequent training. But we are unwilling to give this advice without accompanying it with the caution not to continue the practice till it becomes habitual. It is very difficult for one who is accustomed to use a rest to feel the confidence which is essential to success, when shooting from the shoulder; and no one is deserving the name of a rifleman who requires such aid.

It is difficult for an inexperienced person to conceive of the effect of even a light wind upon so small an object as a rifle-ball, when shot from the gun. The difficulty arises from the impossibility of taking in the idea of such rapid flight, or of the resistance produced by it, by comparison with anything within the limits of our experience. We may attain a conception of it, however, by trying to move a stick through the water. Moving it slowly, the resistance is imperceptible; but as we increase the velocity, we find the difficulty to increase very rapidly, and if we try to strike a quick blow through the water, we find the resistance so enormous that the effort is almost paralyzed. Mathematically, the resistance increases in the ratio of the square of the velocity; and although the air is of course more easily displaced than water, the same rule applies to it, and the flight of a ball is so inconceivably rapid that the resistance becomes enormous. The average initial velocity of a cannon- or rifle-ball is sixteen hundred feet in a second, and a twelve-pound round shot, moving at this rate, encounters an atmospheric resistance of nearly two hundred pounds, or more than sixteen times its own weight. Perhaps a clearer idea may be attained by the statement of the fact, that, were it possible to remove this resistance, or, in other words, to fire a ball in a vacuum, it would fly ten miles in a second,—the same time it now requires to move sixteen hundred feet. Bearing in mind this enormous resistance, it will be more readily apparent that even a slight motion of the element through which the ball is struggling must influence its course. For this reason it is that the best time to shoot, as a general rule, is in the morning or evening, when the air is most apt to be perfectly calm. It will often be found, after making very satisfactory shots at sunrise, that by ten o'clock, even on what would be called a calm day, it is impossible to attain to anything like the accuracy with which the day's work was begun; and, owing to the irregular motion of the air, the difficulty cannot be overcome, except to a limited degree, by making allowance for it.

It is well, however, to practise in all possible conditions of weather, and not to be discouraged at finding unaccountable variations at different times in the flight of balls. A few weeks' experience will at least enable the learner to judge of the veracity of a class of stories one often hears, of the feats of backwoodsmen. It is not long since we were gravely assured by a quondam travelling acquaintance, who no doubt believed it himself, that there were plenty of men in the South who could shave off either ear of a squirrel with a rifle-ball at one hundred yards, without doing him further injury. A short experience of target-shooting will suffice to demonstrate the absurdity of all the wonderful stories of this class which are told and often insisted on with all the bigotry of ignorance. A somewhat extended acquaintance with backwoodsmen has served only to convince us, that, while a practical familiarity with the rifle is more general with them than with us, a scientific knowledge of its principles is rare; and the best target-shooting we have ever seen was in New England.

TWO SUMMERS.

Last summer, when athwart the sky

Shone the immeasurable days,

We wandered slowly, you and I,

Adown these leafy forest-ways,

With laugh and song and sportive speech,

And mirthful tales of earlier years,

Though deep within the soul of each

Lay thoughts too sorrowful for tears,

Because—I marked it many a time—

Your feet grew slower day by day,

And where I did not fear to climb

You paused to find an easier way.

And all the while a boding fear

Pressed hard and heavy on my heart;

Yet still with words of hope and cheer

I bade the gathering grief depart,

Saying,—"When next these purple bells

And these red columbines return,—

When woods are full of piny smells,

And this faint fragrance of the fern,—

"When the wild white-weed's bright surprise

Looks up from all the strawberried plain,

Like thousands of astonished eyes,—

Dear child, you will be well again!"

Again the marvellous days are here;

Warm on my cheek the sunshine burns,

And fledged birds chirp, and far and near

Floats the strange sweetness of the ferns.

But down these ways I walk alone,

Tearless, companionless, and dumb,—

Or rest upon this way-side stone,

To wait for one who does not come.

Yet all is even as I foretold:

The summer shines on wave and wild,

The fern is fragrant as of old,

And you are well again, dear child!

MR. AXTELL.

PART II.

Katie (the doctor's name for her) said consolingly, as we went up-stairs,—

"I am going to sleep in Miss Lettie's little dressing-room; the door is close beside her bed. If you want me, you can speak,—I shall be sure to hear"; and she lighted my footsteps to the door.

I went in hastily, for Katie was gone. The statuesque lady became informed with life; she started violently, and said,—

"Who is it?"

"I beg pardon for the noise," I said; "how are you?"

"Thank you, a pain up here, Kate"; and she put her hand, so long giving support to her chin, upon the top of her head.

"It isn't Kate"; and I came into full view.

She looked up at me.

"Why, you are—yes, I know—Miss Percival," she said.

"I am."

"Have you been here long?"

"Only since yesterday."

Why did she seem relieved at my reply?

"Do they think me ill enough to have a stranger come to me?"

"Almost as polite as the grum brother," I thought; but I said, "You mustn't let me be a stranger to you. I came,—I wasn't sent for."

She made an effort to rise from her seat, but, unable, turned her eyes toward the windows.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I thought I'd like to know what the weather looks like."

"Then let me lift the curtains"; and I drew aside the folds, but there was nothing to be seen. The moon was not yet up; and even had it been, there was slight chance for seeing it, as the sun had stayed behind clouds all the day.

"Put them down, please; there's no light out there."

"The doctor left some medicine for you; will you take it?"

"No, I thank you. I hate medicines."

"So do I."

"Then pray tell me what you wish me to take it for."

"You mistake; it was the doctor's order, not mine."

"The very idea of asking that image of calm decision there to do anything!—but then I must, I am nurse"; so I ventured, "Had you not better go to bed?"

"After a little. Would you bathe my head? this pain distresses me, and I don't want to dream, I'd rather stay awake."

As I stood beside her, gently applying the cooling remedy, trying to stroke away the pain, she asked,—

"Did they tell you that my mother is dead?"

"Yes."

"She was my mother. Oh, why didn't I tell her? Why? why?" and great spasms of torturesome pain drew her beautiful face. I didn't tell you how beautiful she is. Well, it doesn't matter; you couldn't understand, if I should try.

She turned suddenly, caught my dress in her hands, and asked,—

"Have you a mother, Miss Percival?" and before I could answer my sad "No," she said, "Forgive me. I forgot for one moment"

My mother had been twenty years dead. What did she know about it? I, three years old when she died, but just remembered her.

Katie came in, bringing "thoughts of me" condensed into aromatic draughts of coffee, which she put upon the hearth, "to keep warm," she said.

I asked her to bring some "sweet" to mix the powder in.

"I hate disguises," said Miss Axtell; "I'd rather have true bitters than cover them just a little with sugars. Give it me, if I must take it."

"But you can't,—not this powder."

"A glass of water, Kate, please"; and she actually took the bitter dose of Dover in all its undisguised severity.

"There! isn't that a thousand times better than covering it all up in a sweetness that one knows isn't true?"

She looked a little as if expecting an answer. I would have preferred not saying my thought, and was waiting, when she asked,—

"Don't you think on the subject?"

"Yes; I think that I like the bitter better when it is concealed."

"You wouldn't, if you knew, if you had tried it, child."

"Oh, I have taken a Dover's-powder often, and I always bury it in sirup."

She looked a little startled, odd look at me.

"Do you think I'm talking about that simple powder that I've been taking?"

"Weren't you?"

"Come here, innocent little thing!" she said, and motioned me to a footstool at her feet.

Her adjectives were both very unsuitable, when applied to me; but I was nurse, and must yield to the whim of my patient.

"Kate, look after Mr. Axtell."

Poor Kate went out, more from the habit of obedience than apparently to obey any such behest; but she went, nevertheless.

"I know who you are; I knew your mother," she said. "Never attempt to cover up bitterness; it has its use in the world."

"Will you go to bed now? It's very late," I ventured.

She went on as though I had not spoken at all,—

"There's somebody dead down-stairs, there,—now,—this minute;—but dead,—dead,—gone beyond my reach.—Child! child! do you know, do you feel what I mean?"

"How can I? I haven't seen her; I never saw her."

"She's dead,—she's dead,—and I meant to—oh! I meant to do it before she died. Why didn't something tell me? Things do come and speak to me sometimes,—why not last night?"

I got anxious. Was this what the doctor meant by incoherent talking? Away up the village-street I heard the bell striking for midnight.

"It is time you were asleep; please try and sleep."

My words did not stay her; she went on,—

"If it only had,—then,—at the last,—she might have forgiven;—yes,—think, it might have been,—and it is not,—no, it is not!—and she lies dead, down-stairs, in the very room!—But are you sure? Perhaps she isn't dead. Such things have been."

Oh! what should I do? I thought of Katie. "The next door," she said; there were but two in the room; it must be this one, then. I opened it. "No, this is a closet,—dresses are hanging there," I thought; "but there is a door leading out from it." I looked back to the chair, where Miss Axtell still sat; she was talking to herself, as if I had not left the room. I could not venture to open this unknown door without a light to flow into its darkness. I went back into the room and took up a lamp.

"What are you doing?" Miss Axtell stopped to ask; then, forgetting me, she resumed her self-questioning.

I lighted the lamp and went into the closet. I said that there were dresses hanging there. Among them my eyes singled out one; it was not bright,—no, it was a grave, brown, plaid dress. I tried to call Kate. My voice would not obey me. My tongue was still. I grasped the knob and turned it; the door opened. Poor Katie! she was asleep. She started up, bringing the larger half of a dream with her, I'm sure. "It's not so dreadful. You have me left, father," she said, with her young face rosy, and very sleepy. I went close to her, put my hand upon the cover, and said,—

"You must call Mr. Axtell, Katie."

"For what? Is Miss Axtell worse?"

"I think so; she will not lie down."

"Do you think I might try to coax her?"—and Katie rubbed her heavy eyelids, open too soon.

"If you think you can."

Miss Axtell had ceased to talk; she had fallen back into the old absorbed state. Katie kneeled down beside her chair, and spoke.

"Miss Lettie!" she said.

Miss Lettie did not answer. Katie put out one finger only. I saw it shake a bit, as she laid it upon Miss Lettie's hand. As when the doctor touched her forehead, she came back to her proper self, and said,—

"What is it, Kate? Isn't it time you were asleep?"

"Don't you know that my mother is dead?" said poor motherless Katie.

"And so is mine," said Miss Axtell.

"And mine," added I.

"And is it for that that you don't sleep, Kate?"

"No, Ma'am; but it is because you won't try to sleep; and you told us all, when my mother died, that"—and Katie stopped there.

"Why don't you go on?" I asked, in a low voice.

"I can't,—I don't remember the words; but you said, Miss Lettie, that too much sorrow was wicked."

"And so it is; and mine is, if it keeps you awake. I will lie down."

The little maid so kindly, gently arranged the pillows, and made the lady comfortable, that there was little left for me to do.

When she went back to bury the dream that I so suddenly drew out of the balmy land, I had only to shade the light, stir the fire a little, and then wait. From afar up the street came the stroke of one. Miss Axtell's face was turned away from me. I could only fancy that her eyes were closed. Once she put an arm over the pillow. I touched it. It burned with fever-heat. Then all was still. I sat upon a lounge, comfort-giving, related to the chair in style of covering. I fancied, after a long quiet, that my patient was asleep. I kept myself awake by examining this room that I was in. It was, like most of the other rooms, a hexagon, with two windows looking eastward. An air of homeness was over, and in, its every appointment. It seemed a room to sing in; were songs ever heard there? I laid my head upon my hand, and listened to one that Fancy tried to sing,—I, who never sing, in whose soul music rolls and swells in great ocean-waves, that never in this world will break against the shore of sound; and so I builded one, very wild and porous and wavering, a style of iceberg shore, far out in the limitless, waters, and listened to the echoes that came,—and, listening, must have fallen into sleep.

I awoke with a chill feeling, as if the fire had gone down. A draught seemed blowing upon me. I got up with a full sense of my position as keeper of that fire, and went to it. The door into the hall was open. I glanced at the bed; Miss Axtell was not there. The hall was dark. I caught up the lamp and hurried out. I leaned over the balustrade and looked down the stairway. Slowly going down I saw Miss Axtell. Was she a somnambulist? Perhaps so. I must be cautious. I hastened after her, moving as noiselessly as she. I took the precaution to leave the lamp in the upper hall. She was leaning against the wall-side of the staircase. Just as she reached the lower step, I put my arm around her. There was no need; she was fully awake.

"Will you go back to sleep?" she asked of me, before I could find time to make the same request of her.

"No,—I came here for you. Where are you going?"

"In there"; and she pointed to the room where I had seen the doctor and Katie go,—where she who was dead lay.

"Oh, come back! please do! that is no place for you"; and I endeavored to turn her steps.

"It is well that you say it. She's in there; perhaps she isn't dead. Such things have been. It was sudden, you know. Let me go."

I held her with all the strength I had.

"Leave me to myself. I'm going to tell her,—to tell her now. She'll hear me better than to-morrow; they'll have a fathom of earth over her heart then: that will be deeper than all that love of Abraham which covered up her heart from me."

What could I do? Despite my holding arms, she was gaining toward that fatal door, and the light was very dim. I called Katie three times, Miss Axtell still getting near to that I dreaded.

I heard a door open. I looked back, and saw Mr. Axtell coming from the library. He came quickly along the hall, arrested his sister's progress, and said gently, as twice he had spoken before,—

"Lettie, where are you going?"

"In there, Abraham."

"No, Lettie, you are sick; you must go back up-stairs."

"I will, when I have told her what I wish."

"Whom?"

"Mother."

What could Mr. Axtell have meant? He asked me to bring down the lamp; he took it in his own hand, and, supporting his sister, moved on. Was he going to take her in there. He did. I fled back to the library; trembling in affright, I sank into the first chair, and, covering my face with my hands, thought,—

"What terrible people these are! Why did I come here, where I was not wanted?"

"Poor child!"

I started up at the words. Mr. Axtell left the door open.

"You think it strange that I let my sister follow out such a sick fancy, I suppose."

"I think it is dreadful,—terrible."

"Oh, no, it is not. Why do you think so?"

"Talking to dead people!"

"Well?"

"They don't hear you."

"Perhaps not."

"You know they can't."

"No, I do not."

"Then go and learn it. Will you go and listen in there?"

"I will not."

"Why?"

"Lettie wished to be alone."

"You're very strange people."

"We are."

He got up quickly, confusedly, crossed the room, and turned a picture that was upon the sofa. I had not noticed it before. I glanced up at the wall. The face was gone. The picture that be turned must have been that. He came back and stood before me.

"Were you frightened when Lettie came down?" he asked.

"Yes; how could I help it?"

"Why didn't you turn the lock?"

"I was asleep when she went out."

"What awakened you?"

"The cold air from the hall."

"A careful nurse, you are!"

"I am not careful."

"No?"

He teased me, this man. I hate to be teased. And all this time, whilst he stood questioning me, Miss Axtell was in that lone, silent room, confessing to the dead. It was worse than the tower-confessional; and besides, what had she done that was so bad? Nothing, I felt convinced. Why would she do such a thing?

I think I must have spoken the last thought; for Mr. Axtell answered it in his next words.

"Lettie is only working out a necessity of her own spirit. She is not harming any living soul. I cannot see why you should look so white and terrified about it. Have you tasted the coffee?"

I had not thought of it: I told him so.

"Did you give my sister what the doctor left for her?"

Honestly, I had forgotten that the powders were to be given every half-hour, and I had offered only one.

"I don't think you have chosen your vocation wisely," he said, when I had told him of my forgetfulness.

"It seems not."

He went out. Very gently he entered the place of the soulless one. I heard a low, murmurous sound, with a deal of contentment in it. After a few moments they came out. He asked me again to carry the lamp. I went up before them. I couldn't go after; I was afraid of words, or I knew not what, coming from that room.

Mr. Axtell gave the second powder, evidently afraid to trust me. Miss Lettie seemed quite tranquil,—a change had come over her. Her brother poured a cup of coffee and told me to drink it. What right had he to tell me to do anything? What right had I to notice it amid the scenes of this night? but I did, and the coffee remained untasted.

"I cannot trust you alone," he said; and leaving me sitting there in Miss Lettie's chair before the fire, he lay down upon the lounge and went to sleep.

The half-hour went by; this time I would remember my duty. Miss Axtell was awake still, but very quiet. Her face was scorched with fever, when I gave her the third powder. I began to feel excessively sleepy; but to fail the second time,—it would never answer. The coffee was the alternative; I drank of it.

Again Miss Axtell asked that I would bathe her head. That, with the half-hour powders, which quite forgot their sleep-bestowing characteristic, was the only change until the day began to dawn.

Katie crept in with it, all in the little shivers March mornings bring.

She didn't see Mr. Axtell. She asked,—

"How has Miss Lettie been?"

"I haven't been asleep, I believe," answered Miss Axtell.

She called Katie to her, and gave some house-orders, in which I thought I heard an allusion to breakfast, in connection with my name. I knew nothing about the arrangements of this house, but ventured to follow Katie out, and ask if there was any one to take my place, should I go home. Finding that my longer stay was unneedful, I went. How lovely the earth seemed on that morning, not long ago, and yet so long! Why could not people live with quiet thoughts, and peaceful quietness of life, in this little country-village, where there seemed nothing to wake up torrents?

* * * * *

Sophie stood beside me, with a tempting little cup in her hand; upon the table lay a breakfast,—for somebody destined, I was sure.

"I thought I'd waken you, so that you might not lose your night's sleep," she said.

"Thank you. What time is it?"

"Look at what the sun says."

She put up the shade, and the sun came in from the west.

"So long? Have I slept?"

"So long, my dear"; and Sophie gave me a kiss.

Sophie was not demonstrative. I answered it with—

"What queer people you sent me to stay with!"

"You make a mistake, Anna; think a moment; you're dreaming; I did not send you there at all."

"Well, what queer people I went to stay with!"

"How was Miss Axtell, when you came away?"

"Really, I don't know; better, I should think. But, Sophie, pray tell me how it is that I should never have heard of them before."

"Partly because they have been away during the three years that you have been in the habit of visiting us,—and partly because Mr. Axtell, and his sister, too, I think, have a very decided way of avoiding us. What induces Mr. Axtell to perform the office of sexton is more than any one in the congregation can divine."

"I intend to find out, Sophie."

"How?"

"In some way,—how, I cannot tell."

"In the interim, take some breakfast, or you'll lose your curiosity in hunger."

Aaron sent for Sophie just here, and, as usual, I was deserted for him.

I began to scheme a little. "If Miss Axtell had only been the sexton, I could have found a thread; there must be one. Where shall I look for it?"

"How did you manage with our surly Abraham last night? would he let you stay?" asked Aaron, when I joined the family of two.

"He was not very surly; I managed him considerably better than I did his beautiful sister," I said.

He proceeded to question me of the night-events. I told only of the visit to the dead, leaving out the conversations preceding the event.

"An unwarrantable proceeding of Abraham's," said Aaron.

"And that room, so cold, as they always keep such rooms. I expect to hear that Miss Axtell is much worse to-day," was Sophie's comment, when I had told all that I thought it right to tell.

Aaron went away early in the afternoon, to visit some parishioners who lived among the highlands, where the snows of winter had made it difficult to go.

Sophie said, she would read to me. My piece of "knitting-work" was still unfinished, and I, sitting near a window looking churchward, knitted, whilst Sophie pushed back from her low, cool brow those bands of softly purplish hair, and read to me something that strangely soothed my militant spirit, lifted me out of my present self, carried me whither breezes of charity stirred the foliage of the world, and opened sweet flower-blooms on dark, unpromising trees. I had been wafted up to a height where I thought I should forever keep in memory the view I saw, and feel charity toward all erring mortals as long as life endured, when a noise came to my ears. I knew it instantly, before I could catch my dropping stitch and look out. It was the first stroke on hard Mother Earth, the first knocking sound, that said, "We've come to ask one more grave of you."

Sophie did not seem to have heard: she went on with her reading. I looked out. Two men were in the church-yard: one held a measuring-line in his hand, the other a spade. The one with the spade went on to mark the hard winter-beaten turf,—the knotted grass he cut through. I saw him describe the outline of a grave,—the other standing there, silently looking on. When the grave was marked, the one wielding the spade looked up at the silent looker-on, who bowed his head, as if to say, "It is right." Then he began to strike deeper, to hit the stones under the sod.

"What is it?" asked Sophie, looking up, for now she heard.

"I think it's Mrs. Axtell's grave that is to be made," I said.

Sophie came to the window.

"It's a wonder he don't make it himself."

"Who make it?"

"Why, Abraham Axtell. Look now,—see him look at it. It would be very like him. He's fond of such doleful things. He has a way of haunting the Church-yard. Aaron sees him there sometimes on moonlight nights."

Even while she spoke, Mr. Axtell did take the spade from the man; and striking down deeper, stronger than he, he rolled out stones, and the yellow, hard earth, crusty with the frost not yet out of it.

"There! I thought he would. Just watch now, and see of how much use that man is; he might as well be away," exclaimed Sophie.

We two watched the other two in yonder church-yard, until the pile of earth grew so high that it half-concealed them. Two or three times the man seemed to offer to take the spade from Mr. Axtell, but he kept it and worked away. At last the excavation grew so deep that one must needs go down into it to make it deeper. Would Mr. Axtell go? We watched to see. Sophie said "Yes" to the question; I thought "No." There grew a pause. Mr. Axtell stopped in his work, looked at the man, and must have spoken; for he picked up his coat and walked away.

"I wonder what is coming now," said Sophie.

"Nothing," answered I; "for Mr. Axtell evidently is going."

"Time enough to finish to-morrow," she said.—"Where are you going, Anna?"

"To ask after his sister," I answered, and hastened out, for I had seen Mr. Axtell pick up the spade as if to go.

But he did not go; he stood leaning upon the spade, looking into the open grave, forgetful of everything above the earth. I thought to approach him unheard and unseen; but it was willed otherwise, for I stepped upon some of the crispy earth thrown out, and set the stones to rattling in a very rude sort of way. He turned quickly upon me.

"You have chosen a very sad place to meditate over," I said.

"Does it trouble you, if I have?" he asked, not changing his position.

"No, not in the least, Sir. I came to ask after Miss Axtell."

"Lettie is much worse, very ill indeed, to-day."

"I am very sorry to hear it. I ought not to have thought myself wise enough to take care of her last night."

"Yes, you ought; you pleased her; she has asked for you several times to-day,—only she calls you another name. I wish you wouldn't mind it, or seem to notice it either."

"What is the name?"

"Never mind it now; perhaps you will not see her until she is sane, and then she will give you only your own."

"I wish you would tell me."

The spade upon which Mr. Axtell leaned seemed suddenly to have failed to do its duty, for it slid along the distance to the very edge of the grave. Mr. Axtell regained his position and his strength, that had failed only for the moment.

"No, you do not wish it," he said.

What had become of all my sweet charity-blossoms, that unfolded such a little time ago, when Sophie was reading to me? Surely the time of withering had not come so soon? An untimely frost must have withered them all, for I answered,—

"You are dogmatical."

"No, I am not. I only see farther on than you."

"A pleasant way to say, 'You're blind.'"

"And if it is true?"

"To say it to one's self, I suppose, is the better way; for others certainly will of you."

"A sensible conclusion. Who taught you it?"

"You, perhaps."

"Did I? Then my life has been of some little use."

"I saw you very usefully employed not long ago."

"Doing that?" and he pointed to the open place.

"Yes, the strangest occupation I ever saw a man engaged in."

"The man did it awkwardly."

"And you?"

"Better, as you can see."

"I'm no judge."

"Yes, you are."

I saw Aaron coming, driving slowly on. I knew that I must go in.

"Shall I come and stay with Miss Axtell to-night?" I asked.

"You do not look able."

"I am. I've not been long awake. I am quite restored."

He looked up at me. It was the very first time that I had seen him do so.

"Do you wish to come?" he asked.

What a question! I couldn't answer. I thought of my tower-secret, which I felt convinced was wrapped up in that large, sombre mansion, where his dead mother (whom I had never seen) lay, and his beautiful sister was. I had not answered him. He spoke again,—

"As if it could please you to come where death and suffering are! I will find some one; if not, I can stay up."

"I will come, if you can trust me, after last night's errors."

"You look like one to be trusted."

"I am glad you think so. Are my services accepted?"

"Gratefully, if you'll promise one thing."

"Ask it."

"Sleep until I send for you."

"I can't promise."

"You'll try?"

"Perhaps"; and I went back to the parsonage.

Sophie had deserted the reading and the window to do something that she imagined would please Aaron when he came home. It was nearly evening. The sun was gone. I resumed my seat and work.

"You look gloomy, Anna,—what is it?" asked Aaron's evergreen voice, as Aaron's self came into the room, somewhat the worse for mud and mountain wear. "Was last night's watching too much for you?"

"Oh, no; I'm going again to-night."

"Going where?" Sophie was the questioner.

"To stay with Miss Axtell."

"I wouldn't, Anna; one night has made you pale," she said.

"You're a frightened little thing," I said. "You've Aaron's headachy eyes of yesterday."

"Have you promised to go?" Aaron asked.

"I have. Mr. Axtell is to send for me in time."

No more was said on the subject. Aaron had learned many things in his visit to the people's homes. I fancy that he gathered much material for Sunday-sermons that afternoon. I could not help wishing that he knew all of last night's teaching to me. An idle wish; how could he? What is knowledge to one is but dry dust to another soul. The soils of the human heart are as various as those of our planet, and therein as many and as strange plants are grown. Why had I always thought mine to be adapted to the aloe?

The evening was dull. I asked Aaron to lend me a sermon. He inquired,—

"What for?"

"To go to sleep over," I said.

"And are they so soporific?" he laughingly asked.

"It's a great while since I've read one. What have you been doing lately in your profession? anything remarkable?"

He brought me one. It aroused me. The evening passed on. I finished the sermon. Bedtime came in the parsonage, and no messenger from Mr. Axtell for me.

Aaron offered to go. I said, "No, they were such strange people, I would rather not." Chloe came in from the kitchen to say that "Kate, Miss Axtell's girl, had come, and said, 'Miss Lettie was too ill for Miss Percival to take care of her. Mr. Abraham couldn't leave her.'"

The funeral was to be on the morrow.

* * * * *

The morrow came. Early after breakfast I went to the house whereto I had gone with the neighbor's boy two nights before. I met Mr. Axtell just leaving. I inquired after his sister.

"A bad night," he said; "the doctor is here; are you come to stay?"

"If I can be of use."

He walked back with me, went to the sick-room, and left me there with the doctor and Miss Axtell.

She didn't refuse medicines, it seemed; for Doctor Eaton was administering something when I went in.

The same eager look flashed out of his eyes when she spoke to me. She did not remember me,—she called me Mary. Common name it is, but the change seemed to please this quaint M.D.

"Have you found out about the face?" he asked, when he had answered my inquiries after his patient.

"I have not."

"It isn't there any longer. Somebody's taken it away."

"Ah!"

"Don't you care to know about it?"

"Yes, it was a pleasant face,—a prettiness of youth about it."

"Ask him,—do you hear, young lady?—ask him"; and giving me directions for the morning, he left.

Curious old doctor,—what care should he have concerning it?

The opiate, if opiate it was, that Doctor Eaton gave Miss Axtell, quickly worked its spell; for after he had gone, she scarcely noticed me; she only moaned a little, and turned her head upon the pillow, as if to ease the pain that made her face so flushed. The room was darkened; the fire upon the hearth was almost out. It didn't seem the same room as that in which I had heard my song so recently. I had nothing to do but to sit and watch,—a sad, nerve-aching woman-work, at the best. In my pocket I had put the bit of woman's wear that I had taken from the iron bar in my tower. I longed to open the closet-door, and compare it with the dress that I had seen hanging there. No opportunity came. Miss Axtell was very drowsy, if not asleep. For full three hours not a varying occurred. Where had every one gone? Was I forgotten, buried in with this sick lady out of the world? Not quite; for I heard the vitalizing charm of a footstep, followed, by the gentlest of knocks, which I rejoicingly answered. It was the brother, come to look at his sister. He walked quietly in, stood several moments looking at her face, as she lay with half the repose of sleep over it, then came to me and said,—

"She looks better."

"I am glad you think so," I replied; "she seems very ill to me. She called me Mary, when I first came in; since then she hasn't noticed me."

"She called you Mary?" he said. "Are you Mary?"

"My name is Anna," I answered.

"Then you are not Mary?"

"Of course not; I am not two."

After a little while of silence, he said,—

"My mother's funeral will be this afternoon."

"Is there anything that I can do for you before the time?"

"Yes, if you will."

"I am ready."

"Wait here a little," he said, and went down.

Katie came up, her young rosy face delightful to behold in the half-way gloom that filled the place.

"Mr. Abraham is waiting to see you in the library," she said. "I'll stay till you come up."

In my short journey down, I marvelled much concerning what he might want. As I entered the room, I saw no visible thing for hands to do. Now, if it were but a hat to fold the winding badge of sorrow about, or a pair of gloves to mend; but no,—he, this strange man, a sort of barbaric gentleman, looked down at me as I went in. "The doctor was right; somebody has taken the face down," I thought, as my glance went up the wall.

"What is there for me to do?" I asked; for Mr. Axtell seemed to have forgotten that he had intimated the possibility of such an event.

"Simply to look upon the face of my mother ere it goes forever away."

"Do you wish it?"

"Very much."

"I would rather not."

"As you will"; and he turned away proudly, with that high style of curling pride that has a touch of soul in it.

"No, Mr. Axtell, it is not as I will; it is very much as I will not. I can go in there, and look at the face you wish; but it will unfit me for the duties of life for days to come. The face that I see there will tenant this house forever, and not this only,—it will be seen wherever I go."

"Can you not overcome it?"

"Oh, yes."

"Why not, then?"

"It takes such sweet revenge that my overcoming is the sorriest kind of victory."

"It is strange," he said.

"What, Sir?"

"I beg your pardon; I was thinking in words," he replied.

"I am sorry that I cannot do as you wish," I said, and resumed my profession in the room above.

The day went on, never pausing one moment for the sorrow and the suffering that another day had brought to this house in Redleaf.

Just before the funeral-bell began to toll, Mr. Axtell came again to the sickroom door. There was no change. I told him so. Why did the man look as if he had been crying? Was it because he had, I wonder?

He did not come in. Poor man! He was the only relative, the only one to stand at the last beside the grave he opened yesterday. I could not help it, I held out my hand to him as he stood there in the hall, I had no words wherewith to convey sympathy. He looked at it very much as he might have done at one of the waxen hands that belong to waxen figures in a shop-window, without one ray of the meaning it was intended to convey entering into his mind. I felt confused, uncomfortable. It seemed to me, then, irreverent to his sorrow, that I, a stranger, should have attempted the proffer of sympathy; but I must make him comprehend me.

"I wanted to say that I am sorry with you," I said.

"Will you say it the same way again?"

"How?" for this time it was I who did not comprehend.

He held out his hand. I fulfilled my original intention.

"I thank you," he said, and went down alone to his mother's funeral.

How do people ever live through funerals? The solemn tolling of the bell went on. The village-people came, one by one. Aaron's voice it was that was heard in the burial-service that came sounding in to me, sitting close beside the bed whereon the sick one lay. There seemed a comfort in getting near to her. At last—what a cycle of thought! time it was at last—I heard the moving sound of many feet, and then I knew that they were carrying her out, out of the house where she had lived, out of the house wherein she had died, carrying her forth for burial,—forth to the grave her only son had made for her; and I, little, shivering, cowardly soul, hid my face in my hands, and let my tears fall,—not because I knew this proud lady dead,—not because a fibre from my warm heart was being drawn out to be knitted into that fathom-deep grave, for it never would be one of my graves,—but because this death and sorrow were in the world, and I must live my life out in a world with them. The funeral-bell stirred me. I looked out from the window, and saw the long procession moving slowly on.

Katie startled me, coming in.

"The minister's wife is down-stairs; she wants to know if she may come up," she said.

"She is my sister, Katie; yes, I think she may come."

I was so relieved to see Sophie; it was getting back to self again, out of which I had gone in this house. I could not help expressing my relief.

"There's no one down there to close the house and put away the sad reminders," Sophie said, after asking about my patient. "Some one ought to make it more cheerful down there before Mr. Axtell comes."

"Won't you, Sophie, since there's no one else?"

I could not yet go into the one room. Death had been too recently there.

"I cannot put away the feeling that I am not wanted; but it has no place here, now at least, and I will go," she said.

So, with Katie to help, she went to throw an air of light into the rooms below, to waft away the sombre shadows that clouded them, to let in a little of the coming life that must still be lived. And I waited on, up-stairs, and listened, counting each long, low peal of the bell, as it shook out its solemn meaning into the March air, and lost itself in quivering distances. They, the kindly hearts, who had come to perform the last rite, must have moved very slowly on; for I counted out the years that the one gone had lived, ere the bell stopped.

Then was silence. In that stillness they were gently lifting down the once more little one,—for are not our dead all little ones, to be watchfully thought of, to be tenderly cared for?—yes, lifting her gently down into the cradle that God hath prepared, and set the sun to rock, until His smile shall awaken, and His arms lift us out of it.

The opiate's power was past. Miss Axtell turned upon the pillow, and asked Kate for a glass of water.

I carried it to her, lifted her head, and she drank of it without opening her eyes. She asked for Abraham.

"He will be here soon," I replied.

"I thought it was Kate," she said, calling me my own name. "Have you been here long?"

"Since morning."

"Is it afternoon?"

"Yes, three o'clock."

"Why doesn't Abraham come?"

"He was here not very long ago," I said, and asked her to take some food, not wishing her to question me.

"Food!" she said, "what an odd word! Yes, so that you give it to me in pleasant guise."

"What is pleasant to you to-day?"

"Something soft and cool."

What could I give her? It was very convenient having Sophie so near. This must be Miss Axtell's self who had spoken. Delighted with the change, I ran quickly down to beg of sister Sophie a little skill in preparing some dish suitable to the illness up-stairs.

"I'll go and make something," she said.

And straightway taking off her hat and cloak, and tossing them just where mine had gone two nights before, she followed willing Katie to regions where I had not been, and I went back to find my patient perfectly herself,—only oblivious of time. She asked me if the various preludes to the sad event had been properly done. I answered that it was over.

"And I was not to know it?"

I had heard that tone of voice, surely, somewhere else in life. Where could it have been? I thought of my tower, and of that dress in there. Was never to come chance of seeing it? It seemed quite probable, for the lady asked to have the doors opened through.

"Through where?" I asked.

"All of them," she said.

I opened the two into the dressing-room; there was still another out of that. Uncertain if she might mean it as well, I went back to ask.

"Yes," she said; and I opened it.

The first object that met my sight was the painting—the young girl's face—that had been in the library. The hair was covered, as if one had been trying effects of light and shade. I saw this instantly, and turned away.

"I would like you to raise the shades in there," Miss Axtell said. "I like the light that comes in through the distance, the afternoon light; how much it sees upon the earth!"

Going in again, I drew up one, put the drapery of the curtains back, and laid my hand upon the second, when the door from the hall opened, admitting the owner of the place.

Mr. Axtell did not look window-ward. He did not see me. A stillness of thought and being crept over me. I stood, with fingers clasped about the curtain-cord, enduring conscious paralysis. And he? He laid his overcoat across one chair; next to it was the one on which the portrait of the young girl had been placed. In front of it Mr. Axtell kneeled down, buried his face in his hands, and remained motionless. A second tower I was imprisoned in, higher up than the first,—a well, deep with veins of liquid soul, such as man nor patriarch hath ever builded, and I, a bit of rock-moss, unable to reach out to the light. I heard Miss Axtell's voice, and yet I could not move. She called, "Miss Percival!"—Mr. Axtell did not lift his head; she called, "Abraham!"—then I moved. With a slow swiftness of silence I passed by the kneeling figure, and should have gained the door, had not Mr. Axtell risen up. His eyes were, for the second time, upon me. A dark, thunderous look of anger clouded his face. I stood still and looked at him. If he had evinced emotion at my presence in any other mode, I could not have met his look.

"Your sister wished me to raise the shades in here," I said; "she likes western light."

"Why not do it, then?"—the anger rolling sombrous as at the first,—he asked.

I looked back. Noticing that only one of the shades was lifted,—

"I will leave it for you to do," I said; and with one involuntary glance at the young, life-young face, painted there, I went.

"I thought I heard Abraham's footsteps in the hall," said Miss Axtell, when I entered the room.

"You did," I replied. "He is come in."

The second time the sister called, "Abraham!"

"Yes, Lettie," he answered; but he did not come.

"What is the matter, Abraham?" she asked. "Why do you not come?"

"I'm coming, Lettie."

I thought of the "something soft and cool" that Sophie was making for the invalid; and the thought took me up and carried me away before he came in.

It was not destined that I should be long gone; for I met Katie bringing up something, whose odor was not even a temperate one.

"How is this?" I asked of her; "did Mrs. Wilton send it?"

"Yes, Miss Percival."

"Where is she, Katie?"

"Gone home, she told me to tell you."

Why must Sophie run away? She fancies Aaron might not see the stars come out, if she were not near to point their coming. I would not be so simple, I think; but, whatever I thought, I took from rosy-faced Katie the bowl of warm and fragrant gruel, and carried it in to Miss Axtell.

She took it, looked up smilingly at me, and said, "Something soft and cool."

Mr. Axtell held it for her, whilst slowly she took the gruel.

Doctor Eaton came in.

"How is this?" he asked; "we shall take great skill and credit to our individual self for this recovery. Now tell me, Miss Lettie, am I not the very best physician in all Redleaf?"

"There being none other in the village, I'll permit you to quaff the vain draught, so that you will season it with a little of my gruel; I cannot fancy, even, where it came from," she said, playfully extending to the doctor her spoon, half filled.

Doctor Eaton bent forward, and put his lips to the spoon she had not meant him to touch.

Miss Axtell seemed surprised.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, with a little bit of childish petulance.

"Because I think that you have taken all of it that is good for you at present. I made use of the speediest remedy; vital cases demand sure means, you know, Miss Lettie."

Mr. Axtell held the bowl of gruel no longer. Doctor Eaton turned to me.

"Have you been here all day?" he asked.

"I have."

"Will you put your hat on and walk in the air? There's just time enough for you to walk to the parsonage and come back, before dark."

Did Doctor Eaton know how to prescribe for cases which were not vital? It so seemed; for he had given me my need this once. I put my hat on, as he had recommended, and went out. The day was saying its soft, genial farewells, that mingle so charmfully with the promise to come again, that is repeated throughout the great city of Nature. Doctor Eaton evidently intended to watch the effect of his dictation, for he joined me, giving me voice-intimation of his presence.

"Have you asked him yet?" he said, coming to my side, and speaking in his peculiar way, very much as if I were a little child, and he its father.

"Please tell me what I am expected to do," I replied.

"To ask Abraham Axtell about that picture, Miss Percival. It will do him good."

"I am afraid your prescriptions are not always the most agreeable," I said.

"Maybe not; it seems quite possible; but bitters are good,—try them."

"I would rather not, Doctor Eaton."

"No? Then offer them to others. Abraham Axtell is one needing them."

"You are his physician."

"You think so?"

"No, I take the seeming."

"Unsafe road, young lady! don't take it,—take mine. Just ask Abraham whose face that is, then come and tell me what he tells you."

"Breach of confidence, Doctor Eaton. I couldn't do it possibly."

"You'll tell me, though, depend upon it," he said, and was carried off in great haste to repair a broken bone, and I saw him no more, until—when?

I found the reason why Sophie must go home without one word for me. Aaron had said that he would like some peculiar admixture of flour, etc.; and she had feared that he might meet disappointment, unless she prevented it by hurrying home and adding the ingredient of her hands for his delectable comfort, which bit of spicery he undoubtedly appreciated to the complete value of the sacrifice. Sophie is wise in her day and generation. I look with affectionate, reverent admiration upon her life. It seems that she is in just the position that Creating Wisdom fitted her for. I saw Aaron looking at her across the table. She was preparing for him his cup of tea; and of course he had nought to do save to wait, and in waiting he watched her. What was it that I saw? I cannot tell. Why, how is this? the world has two sides, two phases; how many more I cannot know. That which I saw in Aaron's face was a something transitory, a nebulous luminousness of an existence that I had not known, had not imagined, having never before received intimation of it. Why will light evanish so soon?—the fragment that shone in on this Terra Incognita went out, was submerged in the Cup of Thea Sinensis that Aaron received from Sophie's hand. I cannot divine why all this new world of being should fancy to unroll itself, an endless panorama of pansophical mysteries, before my eyes. I do not appreciate it in the least. Philip Bailey's "Mystic" is more comprehensible to me. This is a practical, matter-of-fact world; I know it is. Sophie Percival, my sister, is the wife of Aaron Wilton, country-clergyman in Redleaf,—nothing more; and I thought of my untasted cup of tea, in which lay condensed all the fragrance of Wooeshan hill-sides.

"Why not take your tea, Anna?" Sophie asked, just as I had decided not to think of the things that misted around me.

My answer was a taste of it. I really thought I was doing my duty, when Sophie's words came upon me, a little distractingly,—

"Will you have more sugar in your tea, Anna?"

"No, I thank you."

Aaron said,—

"The house of Axtell seems to have stolen away your proper self, Anna. I've been watching you, and I don't really think you've any idea of what you are subsisting on. Tell me now, what is upon the table?" and Aaron held a newspaper, lying conveniently near, before my eyes.

"Confession and absolution are synonymous with you, aren't they, Aaron?" I asked. "Please give me some bread"; and I put the disagreeable paper away.

There was no bread upon the table.

"My wisdom is confirmed," said Aaron; and he gave me the delectable substitute, Sophie's handiwork.

METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY.

XIV.

If I succeeded in explaining my subject clearly in the last article, my readers will have seen that the five Orders of the Echinoderms are but five expressions of the same idea; and I will now endeavor to show that the same identity of structural conception prevails also throughout the two other Classes of Radiates, and further, that not only the Orders within each Class, but the three Classes themselves, Echinoderms, Acalephs, and Polyps, bear the strictest comparison, founded upon close structural analysis, and are based upon one organic formula.

We will first compare the three Orders of Acalephs,—Hydroids being the lowest, Discophorae; next, and the Ctenophorae highest. The fact that these animals have no popular names shows how little they are known. It is true that we hear some of them spoken of as Jelly-Fishes; but this name is usually applied to the larger Discophore, when it is thrown upon the beach and lies a shapeless mass of gelatinous substance on the sand, or is seen floating on the surface of the water. The name gives no idea of the animal as it exists in full life and activity. When we speak of a Bird or an Insect, the mere name calls up at once a characteristic image of the thing; but the name of Jelly-Fish, or Sun-Fish, or Sea-Blubber, as the larger Acalephs are also called, suggests to most persons a vague idea of a fish with a gelatinous body,—or, if they have lived near the sea-shore, they associate it only with the unsightly masses of jelly-like substance sometimes strewn in thousands along the beaches after a storm. To very few does this term recall either the large Discophore, with its purple disk and its long streamers floating perhaps twenty or thirty feet behind it as it swims,—or the Ctenophore, with its more delicate, transparent structure, and almost invisible fringes in parallel rows upon the body, which decompose the rays of light as the creature moves through the water, so that hues of ruby-red and emerald-green, blue, purple, yellow, all the colors of the rainbow, ripple constantly over its surface when it is in motion,—or the Hydroid, with its little shrub-like communities living in tide-pools, establishing themselves on rocks, shells, or sea-weeds, and giving birth not only to animals attached to submarine bodies, like themselves, but also to free Medusae or Jelly-Fishes that in their turn give birth again to eggs which return to the parent-form, and thus, by alternate generations, maintain two distinct patterns of animal life within one cycle of growth.

Perhaps, of all the three Classes of Radiates, Acalephs are the least known. The general interest in Corals has called attention to the Polyps, and the accessible haunts of the Sea-Urchins and Star-Fishes have made the Echinoderms almost as familiar to the ordinary observer as the common sea-shells, while the Acalephs are usually to be found at a greater distance from the shore, and are not easily kept in confinement. It is true that the Hydroids live along the shore, and may be reared in tanks without difficulty; but they are small, and would be often taken for sea-weeds by those ignorant of their true structure.

Thus this group of animals, with all their beauty of form, color, and movement, and peculiarly interesting from their singular modes of growth, remains comparatively unknown except to the professional naturalist. It may, therefore, be not uninteresting or useless to my readers, if I give some account of the appearance and habits of these animals, keeping in view, at the same time, my ultimate object, namely, to show that they are all founded on the same structural elements and have the same ideal significance. I will begin with some account of the Hydroids, including the story of the alternate generations, by which they give birth to Medusae, while the Medusae, in their turn, reproduce the Hydroids, from which they spring. But first, a few words upon the growth of Radiates in general.

There is no more interesting series of transformations than that of the development of Radiates. They are all born as little transparent globular bodies, covered with vibratile cilia, swimming about in this condition for a longer or shorter time; then, tapering somewhat at one end and broadening at the other, they become attached by the narrower extremity, while at the opposite one a depression takes place, deepening in the centre till it becomes an aperture, and extending its margin to form the tentacles. All Radiates pass through this Polyp-like condition at some period of their lives, either before or after they are hatched from the eggs. In some it forms a marked period of their existence, while in others it passes very rapidly and is undergone within the egg; but, at whatever time and under whatever conditions it occurs, it forms a necessary part of their development, and shows that all these animals have one and the same pattern of growth. This difference in the relative importance and duration of certain phases of growth is by no means peculiar to the Radiates, but occurs in all divisions of the Animal Kingdom. There are many Insects that pass through their metamorphoses within the egg, appearing as complete Insects at the moment of their birth; but the series of changes is nevertheless analogous to that of the Butterfly, whose existence as Worm, Chrysalis, and Winged Insect is so well known to all. Take the Grasshopper, for instance: with the exception of the wings, it is born in its mature form; but it has had its Worm-like stage within the egg as much as the Butterfly that we knew a few months ago as a Caterpillar. In the same way certain of the higher Radiates undergo all their transformations, from the Polyp phase of growth to that of Acaleph or Echinoderm, after birth; while others pass rapidly through the lower phases of their existence within the egg, and are born in their final condition, when all their intermediate changes have been completed. We have appropriate names for all the aspects of life in the Insect: we call it Larva in its first or Worm-like period, Chrysalis in its second or Crustacean-like phase of life, and Imago in its third and last condition as Winged Insect. But the metamorphoses of the Radiates are too little known to be characterized by popular names; and when they were first traced, the relation between their different phases of existence was not understood, so that the same animal in different stages of growth has frequently been described as two or more distinct animals. This has led to a confusion in our nomenclature much to be regretted; for, however inappropriate it may be, a name once accepted and passed into general use is not easily changed.

That early stage of growth, common to all Radiates, in which they resemble the Polyps, has been called the Hydra state, in consequence of their resemblance to the fresh-water Hydra to be found in quantities on the under side of Duck-Weed and Lily-pads. For any one that cares to examine these animals, it may be well to mention that they are easily found and thrive well in confinement. Dip a pitcher into any pool of fresh water where Duck-Weed or Lilies are growing in the summer, and you are sure to bring up hundreds of these fresh-water Hydrae, swarming in myriads in all our ponds. In a glass bowl their motions are easily watched; and a great deal may be learned of their habits and mode of life, with little trouble. Such an animal soon completes its growth: for the stage which I have spoken of as transient for the higher Radiates is permanent for these; and when the little sphere moving about by means of its vibratile cilia has elongated a little, attached itself by the lower end to some surface, while the inversion of the upper end has formed the mouth and digestive cavity, and the expansion of its margin has made the tentacles, the very simple story of the fresh-water Hydra is told. But the last page in the development of these lower Radiates is but the opening chapter in that of the higher ones, and I will give some account of their transformations as they have been observed in the Acalephs.

On shells and stones, on sea-weeds or on floating logs, there may often be observed a growth of exquisitely delicate branches, looking at first sight more like a small bunch of moss than anything else. But gather such a mossy tuft and place it in a glass bowl filled with sea-water, and you will presently find that it is full of life and activity. Every branch of this miniature shrub terminates in a little club-shaped head, upon which are scattered a number of tentacles. They are in constant motion, extending and contracting their tentacles, some of the heads stretched upwards, others bent downwards, all seeming very busy and active. Each tentacle has a globular tip filled with a multitude of cells, the so-called lasso-cells, each one of which conceals a coiled-up thread. These organs serve to seize the prey, shooting out their long threads, thus entangling the victim in a net more delicate than the finest spider's web, and then carrying it to the mouth by the aid of the lower part of the tentacle. The complication of structure in these animals, a whole community of which, numbering from twenty to thirty individuals, is not more than an inch in height, is truly wonderful. In such a community the different animals are hardly larger than a good-sized pin's head; and yet every individual has a digestive cavity and a complete system of circulation. Its body consists of a cavity inclosed in a double wall, continuing along the whole length of each branch till it joins the common stem forming the base of the stock. In this cavity the food becomes softened and liquefied by the water that enters with it through the mouth, and is thus transformed into a circulating fluid which flows from each head to the very base of the community and back again. The inner surface of the digestive cavity is lined with brownish-red granules, which probably aid in the process of digestion; they frequently become loosened, fall into the circulating fluid, and may be seen borne along the stream as it passes up and down. The rosy tint of the little community is due to these reddish granules.

This crowd of beings united in a common life began as one such little Hydra-like animal as I have described above,—floating free at first, then becoming attached, and growing into a populous stock by putting out buds at different heights along the length of the stem. The formation of such a bud is very simple, produced by the folding outwardly of the double wall of the body, appearing first as a slight projection of the stem sideways, which elongates gradually, putting out tentacles as it grows longer, while at the upper end an aperture is formed to make the mouth. This is one of the lower group of Radiates, known as Hydroids, and long believed to be Polyps, from their mode of living in communities and reproducing their kind by budding, after the fashion of Corals. But if such a little tuft of Hydroids has been gathered in spring, a close observer may have an opportunity of watching the growth of another kind of individual from it, which would seem to show its alliance with the Acalephs rather than the Polyps. At any time late in February or early in March, bulb-like projections, more globular than the somewhat elongated buds of the true Hydroid heads, may be seen growing either among the tentacles of one of these little animals, or just below the head where it merges in the stem,[3] Very delicate and transparent in substance, it is hardly perceptible at first; and the gradual formation of its internal structure is the less easily discerned, because a horny sheath, forming the outer covering of the Hydroid stock, extends to inclose and shield the new-comer, whom we shall see to be so different from the animal that gives it birth that one would suppose the Hydroid parent must be as much surprised at the sight of its offspring as the Hen that has accidentally hatched a Duck's egg. At the right moment this film is torn open by the convulsive contractions of the animal, which, thus freed from its envelope, begins at once to expand. By this time this little bud has assumed the form of a Medusoid or Jelly-Fish disk, with its four tubes radiating from the central cavity. The proboscis, so characteristic of all Jelly-Fishes, hangs from the central opening; and the tentacles, coiled within the internal cavity up to this time, now make their appearance, and we have a complete little Medusa growing upon the Hydroid head. Gradually the point by which it is attached to the parent-stock narrows and becomes more and more contracted, till the animal drops off and swims away, a free Jelly-Fish.

The substance of these animals seems to have hardly more density or solidity than their native element. I remember showing one to a friend who had never seen such an animal before, and after watching its graceful motions for a moment in the glass bowl where it was swimming, he asked, "Is it anything more than organized water?" The question was very descriptive; for so little did it seem to differ in substance from the water in which it floated that one might well fancy that some drops had taken upon themselves organic structure, and had begun to live and move. It swims by means of rapid contractions and expansions of its disk, thus impelling itself through the water, its tentacles floating behind it and measuring many times the length of the body. The disk is very convex, as will be seen by the wood-cut; four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the periphery, where they unite in a circular tube around the margin and connect also with the four tentacles; from the centre of the lower surface hangs the proboscis, terminating in a mouth. Notwithstanding the delicate structure of this little being, it is exceedingly voracious. It places itself upon the surface of the animal on which it feeds, and, if it have any hard parts, it simply sucks the juices, dropping the dead carcass immediately after; but it swallows whole the little Acalephs of other Species and other soft animals that come in its way. Early in summer these Jelly-Fishes drop their eggs, little transparent pear-shaped bodies, covered with vibratile cilia. They swim about for a time, until they have found a resting-place, where they attach themselves, each one founding a Hydroid stock of its own, which will in time produce a new brood of Medusae.

This series of facts, presented here in their connection, had been observed separately before their true relation was understood. Investigations had been made on the Hydroid stock, described as Coryne, and upon its Medusoid offspring, described as Sarsia, named after the naturalist Sars, whose beautiful papers upon this class of animals have associated his name with it; but the investigations by which all these facts have been associated in one connected series are very recent. These transformations do not correspond to our common idea of metamorphoses, as observed in the Insect, for instance. In the Butterfly's life we have always one and the same individual,—the Caterpillar passing into the Chrysalis state, and the Chrysalis passing into the condition of the Winged Insect. But in the case I have been describing, while the Hydroid gives birth to the Medusa, it still preserves its own distinct existence; and the different forms developed on one stock seem to be two parallel lives, and not the various phases of one and the same life. This group of Hydroids retains the name of Coryne; and the Medusa born from it, Sarsia, has received, as I have said, the name of the distinguished investigator to whose labors we owe much of our present knowledge of these animals.—Let us look now at another group of Hydroids, whose mode of development is equally curious and interesting.

The little transparent embryos from which they arise, oval in form, with a slight, scarcely perceptible depression at one end, resemble the embryos of Coryne already described. They may be seen in great numbers in the spring, floating about in the water, or rather swimming,—for the motion of all Radiates in their earliest stage of existence is rapid and constant, in consequence of the vibratile cilia that cover the surface. At this stage of its existence such an embryo is perfectly free, but presently its wandering life comes to an end; it shows a disposition to become fixed, and proceeds to choose a suitable resting-place. I use the word "choose" advisedly; for though at this time the little embryo seems to have no developed organs, it yet exercises a certain discrimination in its selection of a home. Slightly pear-shaped in form, it settles down upon its narrower end; it wavers and sways to and fro, as if trying to get a firm foothold and force itself down upon the surface to which it adheres; but presently, as if dissatisfied with the spot it has chosen, it suddenly breaks loose and swims away to another locality, where the same examination is repeated, not more to its own satisfaction apparently, for the creature will renew the experiment half a dozen times, perhaps, before making a final selection and becoming permanently attached to the soil. In the course of this process the lower end becomes flattened, and moulds itself to the shape of the body on which it rests. Once settled, this animal, thus far hardly more than a transparent oblong body without any distinct organs, begins to develop rapidly. It elongates, forming a kind of cup-like base or stem, the upper end spreads somewhat, the depression at its centre deepens, a mouth is formed that gapes widely and opens into the digestive cavity, and the upper margin spreads out to form a number of tentacles, few at first, but growing more and more numerous till a wreath is completed all around it. In this condition the young Jelly-Fish has been described under the name of Scyphostoma. As soon as this wreath of tentacles is formed, a constriction takes place below it, thus separating the upper portion of the animal from the lower by a marked dividing-line. Presently a second constriction takes place below the first, then a third, till the entire length of the animal is divided across by a number of such transverse constrictions, the whole body growing, meanwhile, in height. But now an extraordinary change takes place in the portions thus divided off. Each one assumes a distinct organic structure, as if it had an individual life of its own. The margin becomes lobed in eight deep scallops, and a tube or canal runs through the centre of each such lobe to the centre of the body, where a digestive cavity is already formed. At this time the constrictions have deepened, so that the margins of all the successive divisions of the little Hydroid are very prominent, and the whole animal looks like a pile of saucers, or of disks with scalloped edges and the convex side turned downward. Its general aspect may be compared to a string of Lilac-blossoms, such as the children make for necklaces in the spring, in which the base of one blossom is inserted into the upper side of the one below it. In this condition our Jelly-Fish has been called Strobila.

While these organic changes take place in the lower disks, the topmost one, forming the summit of the pile and bearing the tentacles, undergoes no such modification, but presently the first constriction dividing it from the rest deepens to such a degree that it remains united to them by a mere thread only, and it soon breaks off and dies. This is the signal for the breaking up of the whole pile in the same way by the deepening of the constrictions; but, instead of dying, as they part, they begin a new existence as free Medusae. Only the lowest portion of the body remains, and around the margin of this tentacles have developed corresponding to those which crowned the first little embryo; this repeats the whole history again, growing up during the following season to divide itself into disks like its predecessor.

As each individual separates from the community of which it has made a part, it reverses its position, and, instead of turning the margin of the disk upward, it turns it downward, thus bringing the mouth below and the curve of the disk above. These free individuals have been described under the name of Ephyra. This is the third phase of the existence of our Jelly-Fish. It swims freely about, a transparent, umbrella-like disk, with a proboscis hanging from the lower side, which, to complete the comparison, we may call the handle of the umbrella. The margin of the disk is even more deeply lobed than in the Hydroid condition, and in the middle of each lobe is a second depression, quite deep and narrow, at the base of which is an eye. How far such organs are gifted with the power of vision we cannot decide; but the cells of which they are composed certainly serve the purpose of facets, of lenses and prisms, and must convey to the animal a more or less distinct perception of light and color. The lobes are eight in number, as before, with a tube diverging from the centre of the body into each lobe. Shorter tubes between the lobes alternate with these, making thus sixteen radiating tubes, all ramifying more or less.

From this stage to its adult condition, the animal undergoes a succession of changes in the gradual course of its growth, uninterrupted, however, by any such abrupt transition as that by which it began its life as a free animal. The lobes are gradually obliterated, so that the margin becomes almost an unbroken circle. The eight eyes were, as I have said, at the bottom of depressions in the centre of the several lobes; but, by the equalizing of the marginal line, the gradual levelling, as it were, of all the inequalities of the edge, the eyes are pushed out, and occupy eight spots on the margin, where a faint indentation only marks what was before a deep cut in the lobe. The eight tubes of the lobes have extended in like manner to the edge, and join it just at the point where the eyes are placed, so that the extremity of each tube unites with the base of each eye. Those parts of the margin filling the spaces between the eyes correspond to the depressions dividing the lobes or scallops in the earlier stage, and to those radiate the eight other tubes alternating with the eye-tubes, now divided into numerous branches. Along each of these spaces is developed a fine, delicate fringe of tentacles, hanging down like a veil when the animal is at rest, or swept back when it is in motion. In the previous stage, the tubes ramified toward the margin; but now they branch at or near their point of starting from the central cavity, so extensively that every part of the body is traversed by these collateral tubes, and when one looks down at it from above through the gelatinous transparent disk, the numerous ramifications resemble the fine fibrous structure of a leaf with its net-work of nervules.

On the lower side, or what I have called in a previous article the oral region of the animal, a wonderfully complicated apparatus is developed. The mouth projects in four angles, and at each such angle a curtain arises, stretching outwardly, and sometimes extending as far as the margin. These curtains are fringed and folded on the lower edge, so that they look like four ruffled flounces hanging from the lower side of the animal. On the upper side of the body, but alternating in position with these curtains, are the four ovaries, crescent-like in shape, and so placed as to form the figure of a cross, when seen from above through the transparency of the disk. I should add, that, though I speak of some organs as being on the upper and others on the lower side of the body, all are under the convex, arched surface of the disk, which is gelatinous throughout, and simply forms a transparent vaulted roof, as it were, above the rest of the body.

When these animals first make their appearance in the spring, they may be seen, when the sky is clear and the sea smooth, floating in immense numbers near the surface of the water, though they do not seek the glare of the sun, but are more often found about sheltered places, in the neighborhood of wharves or overhanging rocks. As they grow larger, they lose something of their gregarious disposition,—they scatter more; and at this time they prefer the sunniest exposures, and like to bask in the light and warmth. They assume every variety of attitude, but move always by the regular contraction and expansion of the disk, which rises and falls with rhythmical alternations, the average number of these movements being from twelve to fifteen in a minute. There can be no doubt that they perceive what is going on about them, and are very sensitive to changes in the state of the atmosphere; for, as soon as the surface of the water is ruffled, or the sky becomes overcast, they sink into deeper water, and vanish out of sight. When approached with a dip-net, it is evident, from the acceleration of their movements, that they are attempting to escape.

At the spawning season, toward the end of July or the beginning of August, they gather again in close clusters. At this period I have seen them at Nahant in large shoals, covering a space of fifty feet or more, and packed so closely in one unbroken mass that an oar could not be thrust between them without injuring many. So deep was the phalanx that I could not ascertain how far it extended below the surface of the water, and those in the uppermost layer were partially forced out of the water by the pressure of those below.

It is not strange that the relation between the various phases of this extraordinary series of metamorphoses, so different from each other in their external aspects, should not have been recognized at once, and that this singular Acaleph should have been called Scyphostoma in its simple Hydroid condition, Strobila after the transverse division of the body had taken place, Ephyra in the first stages of its free existence, and Aurelia in its adult state,—being thus described as four distinct animals. These various forms are now rightly considered as the successive stages of a development intimately connected in all its parts,—beginning with the simple Hydroid attached to the ground, and closing in the shape of our common Aurelia, with its white transparent disk, its silky fringe of tentacles around the margin, its ruffled curtains hanging from the mouth, and its four crescent-shaped ovaries grouped to form a cross on the summit. From these ovaries a new brood of little embryos is shed in due time.

There are other Hydroids giving rise to Medusae buds, from which, however, the Medusae do not separate to begin a new life, but wither on the Hydroid stock, after having come to maturity and dropped their eggs. Such is the Hydractinia polyclina. This curious community begins, like the preceding ones, with a single little individual, settling upon some shell or stone, or on the rocks in a tide-pool, where it will sometimes cover a space of several square feet. Rosy in color, very soft and delicate in texture, such a growth of Hydractinia spreads a velvet-like carpet over the rocks on which it occurs. They may be kept in aquariums with perfect success, and for that purpose it is better to gather them on single shells or stones, so that the whole community may be removed unbroken. These colonies of Hydractinia have one very singular character: they exist in distinct communities, some of which give birth only to male, others to female individuals. The functions, also, are divided,—certain members of the community being appointed to special offices, in which the others do not share. Some bear the Medusae buds, which in due time become laden with eggs, but, as I have said, wither and die after the eggs are hatched. Others put forth Hydroid buds only, while others again are wholly sterile. About the outskirts of the community are more simple individuals, whose whole body seems to be hardly more than a double-walled tube, terminating in a knob of lasso-cells. They are like long tentacles placed where they can most easily seize the prey that happens to approach the little colony. The entire community is connected at its base by a horny net-work, uniting all the Hydroid stems in its meshes, and spreading over the whole surface on which the colony has established itself.

There is a very curious and beautiful animal, or rather community of animals, closely allied to the Hydractinia polyclina, which next deserves to be noticed. The Portuguese Man-of-War—so called from its bright-colored crest, which makes it so conspicuous as it sails upon the water, and the long and various streamers that hang from its lower side—is such a community of animals as I have just described, reversed in position, however, with the individuals hanging down, and the base swollen and expanded to make the air-bladder which forms its brilliant crested float. In this curious Acalephian Hydroid, or Physalia, the individuality of function is even more marked than in the Hydractinia. As in the latter, some of the individuals are Medusae-bearing, and others simple Hydrae; but, beside these, there are certain members of the community who act as swimmers, to carry it along through the water,—others that are its purveyors, catching the prey, by which, however, they profit only indirectly, for others are appointed to eat it, and these feeders may be seen sometimes actually gorged with the food they have devoured, and which is then distributed throughout the community by the process of digestion and circulation.

It would be hopeless, even were it desirable, to attempt within the limits of such an article as this to give the faintest idea of the number and variety of these Hydroids; and I will therefore say nothing of the endless host of Tubularians, Campanularians, Sertularians, etc. They are very abundant along our coast, and will well reward any who care to study their habits and their singular modes of growth. For their beauty, simply, it is worth while to examine them. Some are deep red, others rosy, others purple, others white with a glitter upon them, as if frosted with silver. Their homes are very various. Some like the fresh, deep sea-water, while they avoid the dash and tumult of the waves; and they establish themselves in the depressions on some low ledge of rocks running far out from the shore, and yet left bare for an hour or two, when the tide is out. In such a depression, forming a stony cup filled with purest sea-water, overhung by a roof of rock, which may be fringed by a heavy curtain of brown sea-weed, the rosy-headed, branching Eudendrium, one of the prettiest of the Tubularians, may be found. Others like the tide-pools, higher up on the rocks, that are freshened by the waves only when the tide is full: such are the small, creeping Campanularians. Others, again, like the tiny Dynamena, prefer the rougher action of the sea; and they settle upon the sides of rents and fissures in the cliffs along the shore, where even in calm weather the waves rush in and out with a certain degree of violence, broken into eddies by the abrupt character of the rocks. Others seek the broad fronds of the larger sea-weeds, and are lashed up and down upon their spreading branches, as they rock to and fro with the motion of the sea. Many live in sheltered harbors, attaching themselves to floating logs, or to the keels of vessels; and some are even so indifferent to the freshness of the water that they may be found in numbers along the city-wharves.[4]

Beside the Jelly-Fishes arising from Hydroids, there are many others resembling these in all the essential features of their structure, but differing in their mode of development; for, although more or less Polyp-like when first born from the egg, they never become attached, nor do they ever bud or divide, but reach their mature condition without any such striking metamorphoses as those that characterize the development of the Hydroid Acalephs. All the Medusas, whether they arise from buds on the Hydroid stock, like the Sarsia, or from transverse division of the Hydroid form, like the Aurelia, or grow directly from the egg to maturity, without pausing in the Hydroid phase, like the Campanella, agree in the general division and relation of parts. All have a central cavity, from which arise radiating tubes extending to the margin of the umbrella-like disk, where they unite either in a net-work of meshes or in a single circular tube. But there is a great difference in the oral apparatus; the elaborate ruffled curtains, that hang from the corners of the mouth, occur only in the Species arising from the transverse division of the Polyp-like young. For this reason they are divided into two Orders,—the Hydroids and the Discophorae.

The third Order, the Ctenophorae, are among the most beautiful of the Acalephs. I have spoken of the various hues they assume when in motion, and I will add one word of the peculiarity in their structure which causes this effect. The Ctenophorae differ from the Jelly-Fishes described above in sending off from the main cavity only two main tubes, instead of four like the others; but each of these tubes divides and subdivides in four branches as it approaches the periphery. From the eight branches produced in this way there arise vertical tubes extending in opposite directions up and down the sides of the body. Along these vertical tubes run the rows of little locomotive oars, or combs, as they have been called, from which these animals derive their name of Ctenophorae. The rapid motion of these flappers causes the decomposition of the rays of light along the surface of the body, producing the most striking prismatic effect; and it is no exaggeration to say that no jewel is brighter than these Ctenophorae as they move through the water.

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I trust I have succeeded in showing that the three Orders of the Acalephs are, like the five Orders of the Echinoderms, different degrees of complication of the same structure. In the Hydroids, the organization does not rise above the simple digestive cavity inclosed by the double body-wall; and we might not suspect their relation to the Acalephs, did we not see the Jelly-Fish born from the Hydroid stock. In the Hydroid-Medusae and Discophorae, instead of a simple digestive sac, as in the Hydroids, we have a cavity sending off tubes toward the periphery, which ramify more or less in their course. Now whether there are four tubes or eight, whether they ramify extensively or not, whether there are more or less complicated appendages around the margin or the mouth, makes no difference in the essential structure of these bodies. They are all disk-like in outline, they all have tentacles hanging from the margin, and a central cavity from which tubes diverge that divide the body into a certain number of portions, bearing in all the same relation to each other and to the central cavity. In the Ctenophorae, another complication of structure is introduced in the combination of vertical with horizontal tubes and the external appendages accompanying them.

But, whatever their differences may be, a very slight effort of the imagination only is needed to transform any one of these forms into any other. Reverse the position of any simple Hydra, so that the tentacles hang down from the margin, and let four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the periphery, and we have the lowest form of Jelly-Fish. Expand the cup of the Hydra to form a gelatinous disk, increase the number of tubes, complicate their ramifications, let eyes be developed along the margin, add some external appendages, and we have the Discophore. Elongate the disk in order to give the body an oval form, diminish the number of main tubes, and let them give off vertical as well as horizontal branches, and we have the Ctenophore.

In the Class of Polyps there are but two Orders,—the Actinoids and the Halcyonoids; and I have already said so much of the structure of Polyps that I think I need not repeat my remarks here in order to show the relation between these groups. The body of all Polyps consists of a sac divided into chambers by vertical partitions, and having a wreath of hollow tentacles around the summit, each one of which opens into one of the chambers. The greater complication of these parts and their limitation in definite numbers constitute the characters upon which their superiority or inferiority of structure is based. Here the comparison is easily made; it is simply the complication and number of identical parts that make the difference between the Orders. The Actinoids stand lowest from the simple character and indefinite increase of these parts; while the Halcyonoids, with their eight lobed tentacles, corresponding to the same number of internal divisions, are placed above them.

We have the key-note to the common structure of the three Classes whose Orders we have been comparing in the name of the division to which they all belong: they are Radiates. The idea of radiation lies at the foundation of all these animals, whatever be their form or substance. Whether stony, like the Corals, or soft, like the Sea-Anemone, or gelatinous and transparent, like the Jelly-Fish, or hard and brittle, like the Sea-Urchins,—whether round or oblong or cylindrical or stellate, in all, the internal structure obeys this law of radiation.

Not only is this true in a general way, but the comparison may be traced in all the details. One may ask how the narrow radiating tubes of the Acalephs, traversing the gelatinous mass of the body, can be compared to the wide radiating chambers of the Polyp; and yet nothing is more simple than to thicken the partitions in the Polyps so much as to narrow the chambers between them, till they form narrow alleys instead of wide spaces, and then we have the tubes of the Jelly-Fish. In the Jelly-Fish there is a circular tube around the margin into which all the radiating tubes open. What have we to compare with this in the Polyps? The outer edge of each partition in the Polyp is pierced by a hole near the margin. Of course when the partition is thickened, this hole, remaining open, becomes a tube; for what is a tube but an elongated hole? The comparison of the Acalephs with the Echinoderms is still easier, for they both have tubes; but in the latter the tubes are inclosed in walls of their own, instead of traversing the mass of the body, as in Acalephs, etc.

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In preparing these articles on the homologies of Radiates, I have felt the difficulty of divesting my subject of the technicalities which cling to all scientific results, until they are woven into the tissue of our every-day knowledge and assume the familiar garb of our common intellectual property. When the forms of animals are as familiar to children as their A, B, C, and the intelligent study of Natural History, from the objects themselves, and not from text-books alone, is introduced into all our schools, we shall have popular names for things that can now only be approached with a certain professional stateliness on account of their technical nomenclature. The best result of such familiarity with Nature will be the recognition of an intellectual unity holding together all the various forms of life as parts of one Creative Conception.

GABRIEL'S DEFEAT.

In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true records of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a plot perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the political events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the scanty traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in public libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for American history are vanishing,—since not one of our great institutions possesses, for instance, a file of any Southern newspaper of the year 1800,—yet the little which I have gained may have an interest which makes it worth preserving. I have never been able to see why American historians should be driven to foreign lands for subjects, when our own nation has furnished tyrannies more terrible than that of Philip of Spain, and heroes more silent than William of Orange,—or why our novelists must seek themes in Italy, on the theory avowed by one of the most gifted of their number, that this country is given over to a "broad commonplace prosperity," and harbors "no picturesque or gloomy wrong." But since, as the Spanish proverb says, no man can at the same time ring the bells and walk in the procession, so it has perhaps happened that those most qualified to record the romance of slave-institutions have been thus far too busy in dealing with the reality.

Three times, at intervals of thirty years, has a wave of unutterable terror swept across the Old Dominion, bringing thoughts of agony to every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every Virginian slave. Each time has one man's name become a spell of dismay and a symbol of deliverance. Each time has that name eclipsed its predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to fresher memory: John Brown revived the story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat Turner recalled the vaster schemes of Gabriel.