THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. V.—MAY, 1864.—No. V.

CONTENTS

AMERICAN FINANCES AND RESOURCES.

LETTER NO. V. OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.

London, 10 Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
February 8th, 1864.

In my third and fourth letters on American finances and resources, the following comparisons were instituted: Massachusetts and New Jersey, Free States, with Maryland and South Carolina, Slave States; New York and Pennsylvania, Free States, with Virginia, Slave State; Rhode Island, Free State, with Delaware, Slave State; Illinois, Free State, with Missouri, Slave State; the Free States of 1790, with the Slave States of that day; the Free States of 1860, with the Slave States of that date. These comparisons were based on the official returns of the Census of the United States, and exhibited in each case and in the aggregate the same invariable result, the vastly superior progress of the Free States in wealth, population, and education.

I will now institute one other comparison, Kentucky, slaveholding, with Ohio, a Free State.

Kentucky—population in 1790, 73,077; Ohio, none. 1800: Kentucky, 220,955; Ohio, 45,365. 1860: Kentucky, 1,155,684; Ohio, 2,339,502. We must institute the comparison from 1800, as Ohio was a wilderness in 1790, when Kentucky had a population of 73,077. In Kentucky, the ratio of increase of population from 1800 to 1860 was 527.98 per cent., and in the same period in Ohio 5,057.08. (Table 1, Census 1860.) Thus from 1800 to 1860 Ohio increased in nearly tenfold the ratio of Kentucky.

Wealth.—By Tables 33 and 36, Census of 1860, the value of the product of 1859 was as follows:

Thus is it, that, while in 1790 and 1800 Kentucky was so very far in advance of Ohio, yet, in 1860, so vast was the advance of Ohio as compared with Kentucky, that the value of the product of Ohio was nearly triple that of Kentucky, and, per capita, much more than one third greater. No reason can be assigned for these remarkable results, except that Kentucky was slaveholding, and Ohio a Free State.

Their area is nearly the same, and they are adjacent States; the soil of Kentucky is quite equal to that of Ohio, the climate better for crops and stock, and the products more various.

We have seen the actual results in 1860, but if Kentucky had increased in population from 1800 to 1860 in the same ratio as Ohio, Kentucky then would have numbered 11,175,970, or nearly ten times her present population; and if the product had been the same as in Ohio, per capita, the value would have been $1,612,804,230, or more than fourteen times greater than the result. Thus it is demonstrated by the official Tables of the Census of the United States, that if Kentucky had increased in wealth and population from 1800 to 1860 in the same ratio as Ohio, the results would have been as follows:

Kentucky: population in 1860, 11,175,970; actual population in 1860, 1,155,684; value of products in 1860, $1,612,804,230; actual value in 1860, $115,408,000.

Some attempt has been made to account for these marvellous results, by stating that Ohio has a border on one of the lakes, and Kentucky has not. But to this it may be replied, that Kentucky borders for twice the distance on the Ohio River, has a large front on the Mississippi River, and embraces within her limits those noble streams, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, making, together with the Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Green, and Barren Rivers, the natural advantages of Kentucky for navigation, superior to those of Ohio. But a conclusive answer to this argument is found in the fact that, omitting all the counties of Ohio within the lake region, the remainder, within the valley of the Ohio River, contain a population more than one half greater than that of the whole State of Kentucky.

Lands.-The farm lands, improved and unimproved, of Ohio, in 1860, were worth $666,564,171. The number of acres 20,741,138, value per acre $32.13. (Census of 1860, p. 197, Table 36.) The farm lands of Kentucky, improved and unimproved, were worth $291,496,953, the number of acres 19,163,276, worth per acre, $15.21. (Ib.) Difference in favor of Ohio, $375,067,165. But if to this we add the difference between the value of the town and city lots and unoccupied lands of Ohio and Kentucky, the sum is $125,009,000, which added to the former sum ($375,067,165) makes the difference in favor of Ohio $500,076,165, when comparing the value of all her lands with those of Kentucky. We have seen that the value of the products in 1860 was, Ohio $337,619,000, Kentucky $115,408,000. But these products embrace only agriculture, manufactures, the mines, and fisheries.

We have no complete tables for commerce in either State, but the canals and railroads are as follows (Census of 1860, No. 38, pp. 225, 226, 233): Ohio: Miles of railroad, 3,016.83; cost of construction, $113,299,514. Kentucky: Miles of railroad, 569.93; cost of construction, $19,068,477. Estimated value of freight transported on these railroads in 1860: Ohio, $502,105,000; Kentucky, $48,708,000. On the 1st of January, 1864, the number of miles of railroad in operation in Ohio was 3,356.74, costing $130,454,383, showing a large increase since 1860, while in Kentucky there was none. (Amer. R. R. Journal, p. 61, vol. 37.) Canals in 1860 (Census Table 39): Ohio, 906 miles; Kentucky, two and a half miles. These Tables all prove how vast has been the increase of the wealth of Ohio as compared with Kentucky.

Let us now examine some of the educational statistics.

By Census Table 37, giving the newspapers and periodicals in the United States in 1860, the whole number of that year was 4,051, of which only 879 were in the Slave States; total number of copies circulated that year in the United States, 927,951,548, of which number there were circulated in the Slave States only 167,917,188. This Table shows the total number of newspapers and periodicals published in Ohio in 1859 was 340, and the number of copies circulated that year in that State was 71,767,742. In Kentucky, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in 1859 was 77, and the number of copies circulated that year was 13,504,044, while South Carolina, professing to instruct and control the nation, had a circulation of 3,654,840, although South Carolina, in 1790, had a population of 249,073, when Ohio was a wilderness, and Kentucky numbered only 73,077.

As regards education, we must take the Tables for the Census of 1850, those for 1860 not having been yet published.

By Table 144, Census of 1850, the total number of pupils in public and private schools, colleges, and academies, was for that year as follows: Ohio, 502,826. Kentucky, 85,914. Percentage of native free population who cannot read or write (Table 155), Ohio 3.24; Kentucky, 9.12; Slave States, native white adults who cannot read or write, ratio 17.23; Free States, 4.12. (Table 157.) If we include slaves, more than one half the adults of the Slave States cannot read or write. Indeed, it is made by law in the Slave States a crime (severely punished) to teach any slave to read or write. These Tables also show that in South Carolina, the great leader of secession, (including slaves) more than three fourths of the people can neither read nor write. Such is the State, rejoicing in the barbarism of ignorance and slavery, exulting in the hope of reviving the African slave trade, whose chief city witnesses each week the auction of slaves as chattels, and whose newspapers, for more than a century, are filled with daily advertisements by their masters of runaway slaves, describing the brands and mutilations to which they have been subjected; that passed the first secession ordinance, and commenced the war upon the Union by firing upon the Federal flag and garrison of Sumter. Yet it is the pretended advocates of peace that justify this war upon the Union, and insist that it shall submit to dismemberment without a struggle, and permit slavery to be extended over nearly one half the national territory, purchased by the blood and treasure of the nation. Such a submission to disintegration and ruin—such a capitulation to slavery, would have been base and cowardly. It would have justly merited for us the scorn of the present, the contempt of the future, the denunciation of history, and the execration of mankind. Despots would have exultingly announced that 'man is incapable of self-government;' while the heroes and patriots in other countries, who, cheered and guided by the light of our example, had struggled in the cause of popular liberty, would have sunk despairingly from the conflict. This is our real offence to European oligarchy, that we will crush this foul rebellion, extinguish the slavery by which it was caused, make the Union stronger and more harmonious, and thus give a new impulse and an irresistible moral influence and power to free institutions.

Let me recapitulate some of the facts referred to in these letters, and established by the Census of the United States.

Area of the United States, 3,250,000 square miles, exceeding that of all Europe—all compact and contiguous, with richer lands, more mineral resources, a climate more salubrious, more numerous and better harbors, more various products, and increasing in wealth and population more rapidly than any other country.

Our country, then, is better watered than any other, and has more navigable streams, and greater hydraulic power.

We have completed since 1790, 5,782 miles of canal, costing $148,000,000; and 33,860 miles of railroad (more than all the rest of the world), costing $1,625,952,215. (Amer. R. R. Journal, 1864, No. 1,448, vol. 37, p. 61.)

Our land lines of telegraph exceed those of all the rest of the world, the single line from New York to San Francisco being 3,500 miles. Our mines of coal, according to Sir William Armstrong, the highest British authority, are thirty-two times as great as those of the United Kingdom.

Annual product of our mines of gold and silver, $100,000,000, estimated at $150,000,000 per annum by our Commissioner of the General Land Office, when the Pacific railroad shall be completed.

Public lands unsold, belonging to the Federal Government, 1,055,911,288 acres, being 1,649,861 square miles, and more than thirty-two times the extent of England.

Immigration to the United States from 1850 to 1860, 2,598,216, adding to our national wealth during that decade $1,430,000,000.

Education—granted by Congress since 1790 for the purposes of public schools—two sections (1,280 acres) in every township (23,040 acres), in all 1,450,000,000 acres of public lands; one eighteenth part given, being 80,555,555 acres, worth at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, $100,694,443—the real value, however, was much greater.

Granted by Congress for colleges and universities, 12,080,000 acres, including 3,553,824 given by the Federal Government to the State of Tennessee, worth, at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, $15,100,000, which is much below their true value.

Total in public lands granted by Federal Government for education, 92,635,555 acres; minimum value, $115,794,443.

In 1836, after full payment of the entire principal and interest of the public debt, there remained in the Federal Treasury a surplus of $38,000,000, of which about one half, $19,000,000, was devoted to educational purposes.

Total Federal appropriations since 1790 for education, $134,794,443.

This is exclusive of the many millions of dollars expended by the Federal Government for military and naval schools, etc., at West Point, Washington, Annapolis, and Newport. Besides these Federal donations, there has been granted by States, Territories, counties, towns, and cities of the Union for education, since 1790 (partly estimated) $148,000,000. Grand total by States and Federal Government appropriated in the United States since 1790, for education, $282,794,443. This is independent of numerous private donations for the same purpose, that by Mr. Girard exceeding $1,500,000, and that by Mr. Smithson exceeding $500,000. It is then a fact that the Governments of the United States, State and Federal, since 1790, have appropriated for education more money than all the other Governments of the world combined during the same period. This is a stupendous fact, and one of the main causes of our wonderful progress and prosperity. We believe that 'knowledge is power,' and have appropriated nearly $300,000,000, during the last seventy-four years, in aid of the grand experiment. We believe that 'man is capable of self-government,' but only when educated and enlightened. We believe that the power and wealth and progress of nations increase in proportion to the education and enlightenment of the masses. We believe in intellectual as well as machine and muscular power, and that when the millions are educated, and work with their heads as well as their hands, the progress of the nation will be most rapid. Our patent office is a wonderful illustration of this principle, showing on the part of our industrial classes more valuable inventions and discoveries, annually, than are produced by the workingmen of all the rest of the world.

Population.

Ratio of Increase.—From 1790 to 1800, 35.02; from 1800 to 1810, 36.45; from 1810 to 1820, 33.13; from 1820 to 1830, 33.49; from 1830 to 1840, 32.67; from 1840 to 1850, 35.87; from 1850 to 1860, 35.59. Thus it appears (omitting territorial acquisitions) that our ratio of increase was much greater from 1850 to 1860 than during any preceding decade. This was the result of augmented immigration, which is still to go on with increased power for many years. Making allowance for all probable contingencies, and reducing the decennial increase from 35.59 to three per cent. per annum, our able and experienced Superintendent of the Census, in his last official report, of 20th May, 1862, gives his own estimate of the future population of the United States:

That, in view of our new Homestead law—our high wages—the extinction of slavery—increased confidence in our institutions—and augmented immigration, these results will be achieved, can scarcely be doubted. As population becomes more dense in Europe, there will be an increased immigration to our Union, and each new settler writes to his friends abroad, and often remits money to induce them to join him in his Western home. The electric ocean telegraph will soon unite Europe with America, and improved communications are constantly shortening the duration of the voyage and diminishing the expense. Besides, this war has made us much better known to the European masses, who, everywhere, with great unanimity and enthusiasm sustain our cause, and, with slavery extinguished, will still more prefer our institutions.

From all these causes there will be an augmented exodus from Europe to America, when our rebellion is suppressed, and slavery overthrown. Besides, the President of the United States now proposes appropriations of money by Congress in aid of immigration, and such will become the policy of our Government. We have seen the official estimate made by our Superintendent of the Census, but if we take the ratio of increase of the last decade, the result would be as follows:

The estimate of the Superintendent is, therefore, six millions less than according to the ratio from 1850 to 1860, and much less than from 1790 to 1860.

When we reflect that if, as densely settled as Massachusetts, our population would exceed 513,000,000, or if numbering as many to the square mile as England, our inhabitants would then be more than twelve hundred millions, the estimate of 100,000,000 for the year 1900 cannot be regarded as improbable.

Our national wealth was

Increase from 1850 to 1860, 126.45 per cent.

At the same rate of increase for the four succeeding decades, the result would be:

Tonnage.

At the same rate of increase as from 1851 to 1861, the result would be:

Total number of copies of our newspapers and periodicals circulated in the United States in 1860, 927,951,548, exceeding that of all the rest of the world.

Let us now recapitulate the results from our Census, founded on a comparison of the Slave and Free States.

Compare the column as regards Virginia with the returns for Pennsylvania, and the result is nearly as remarkable as that of New York.

Pennsylvania, area 46,000, population in 1790, 434,373; in 1860, 2,900,115. Products of 1859, $399,600,000, per capita, $138, profit on capital, 22 per cent. Value of farm lands per acre, $38.91. Railroads, 2,690 miles, costing $147,483,410. Canals, 1,259 miles, costing $42,015,000. Tonnage built in 1860, 21,615 tons. Bank capital, $25,565,582. Exports and imports, $20,262,608, Copies of press circulated in 1860,116,094,480. Pupils at public schools, 413,706. Volumes in public libraries, 363,400. Value of churches, $11,853,291.

It is thus demonstrated by the official statistics of the Census of the United States, from 1790 to 1860, that the total annual product of the Free States per capita exceeds that of the Slave States, largely more than two to one, and, including commerce, very nearly three to one. As regards education, also, we see that the ratio in favor of the Free States is more than four to one in 1850 (4.12 to 17.23), and, in 1860, more than five to one (3.21 to 17.03). And even as regards agricultural products, we have seen that those of the Free States were $2,527,676,000 per annum, and of the Slave States only $862,324,000. The value of the lands of the Free States was $25.19 per acre, of the Slave States only $10.46 per acre; the product of the improved lands of the Free States was $26.68 per acre and of the Slave States $11.55, while, per capita, the result was $131.48 to $70.56.

These facts prove how much greater the crops of the Slave States would be, if their farms (including cotton) were cultivated by free labor. It is also thus demonstrated how completely the fertile lands of the South are exhausted and reduced in value by slave culture. Having thus proved, deductively, the ruinous effects of slavery, I will proceed, in my next letter, inductively, to exhibit the causes which have produced these remarkable results.

R. J. Walker.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER V.

The day wore quietly on, like any other day; for the confusion and turmoil of the ovation were already a half-forgotten thing of the past, and Rome had again subsided into its usual course: in the earlier hours, a city of well-filled streets, astir and vocal with active and vigorous trade and labor; then—as the noontide sun shed from the brazen sky a molten glow, that fell like fire upon the lava pavement, and glanced from polished walls until the whole atmosphere seemed like a furnace—a city seemingly deserted, except by a few slaves, engaged in removing the triumphal arches hung with faded and lifeless flowers, and by a soldier here and there in glistening armor, keeping a lonely watch; and again—as the sun sank toward the west, and, with the lengthening shadows, the intensity of the heat diminished—a city flooded with wealth and fashion, pouring in confused streams hither and thither, through its broadest avenues and forums—groups of idlers sauntering along to watch the inoccupation of others, and with the prospective bath as the pretence for the stroll—matrons and maidens of high degree, with attendants following them—a rattle of gayly caparisoned chariots, with footmen trotting beside the wheels—guards on horseback—detachments of prætorian soldiers passing up and down—here the car of a senator of the broad purple—there the mounted escort of a Syrian governor—all that could speak of magnificence, wealth, and authority, at that hour thronged the pavement.

Leaving the Vanno palace, Ænone joined herself to this moving concourse. At her side walked one of her bondwomen, and, at a pace or two behind, properly attired, and armed only with a short sword, strode the armor bearer. Thus attended, she pressed forward along the Appian Way toward the outskirts of the city—past broad palaces and villas, with encircling gardens and open paved courts—past shrubberies, fish ponds, and statue-crowned terraces—past public baths, through whose broad doorways the people swarmed by hundreds, and whose steps were thronged with waiting slaves; now stopping until the armor bearer, running to the front, could make a passage for her through some crowd denser than ordinary—then gliding onward with more rapid pace, as the way became clearer—and again arresting herself for a moment as the stream of people also tarried to watch the approach of the gorgeous chariot and richly uniformed guards of the emperor Titus Vespasian. At length, turning the corner of a pillar-porticoed temple, which stood back from the street, and up the gentle ascent of whose steps a concourse of priests and attendants were forcing a garland-decked bullock, unconscious of the sacrificial rites which awaited him within, she stood beyond the surging of the crowd and in a quiet little street.

It was a narrow avenue, in whose humble architecture brick took the place of stone; but by no means mean or filthy, like so many of the streets of similar width in the central portion of the city. Stretching out toward the open country, and not given up to merchandise or slave quarters, its little houses had their gardens and clustering vines about them, supplying with the picturesque whatever was wanting in magnificence, and evidencing a pleasant medium between wealth and poverty. The paved roadway was clean and unbroken; and far down as the eye could reach no life could be seen, except a single slave with a fruit basket balanced upon his head, and near him a group of children at play.

Passing down this street, Ænone came to a spot where one of the great aqueducts which supplied the city, crossed the roadway diagonally with a single span. At the right hand stood a small brick house, built into the nearest arch so snugly that it seemed as though its occupants could almost hear the gurgling of the water flowing overhead from the hills of Albanus. Like the other houses in its neighborhood, it had a small courtyard in front, planted with a shrub or two. This was the home of her father, the centurion Porthenus. Stopping here, she was about to enter without warning, according to her usual custom, but as she advanced, a dwarf, whom she recognized as the same which that morning had so eagerly presented himself for notice in the front of her husband's captives, sprang forward, grinned his recognition of the armor bearer, made another grimace expressive of mingled respect and admiration for herself, threw open the door, and ushered her in with an outburst of ceremonious pride befitting an imperial reception.

At a back window of the house, from whence the line of aqueduct could be seen for some distance leaping houses and streets in its undeviating course to the centre of the city, sat the centurion. He was a man of medium height, short necked, and thick set, with blunted features and grizzled hair and beard. Two of the fingers of his left hand were wanting, and a broad scar, the trophy of a severe skirmish among the Alemanni, crossed his right cheek and one side of his nose, giving him an expression more curious than pleasing. His general appearance was after the common type of an old, war-worn soldier, rough and unscrupulous by nature, hardened by camp life and dissipation, grown cruel by excess of petty authority, overbearing with his inferiors, jovial and complaisant with his equals, cringing to his superiors, and with an air of discontent overlaying every other expression, as though he was continually tortured with the belief that his success in life had not equalled his merits. As Ænone entered, he was bending over a shield, and earnestly engaged in burnishing its brazen mouldings. At his side leaned a short sword, awaiting similar attention, and in a rack beside him were a number of weapons of different varieties and sizes, which had already submitted to his restorative skill, and now shone like glass.

Hearing her light step, he looked up, arose, flung the shield into a corner, and, with a roar, as though ordering a battalion, called out to the grinning dwarf, who had followed her in:

"Ho there, ape! A seat for my daughter, the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno!"

The dwarf sprang forward and dragged out a seat for her; having done which, he seemed about to yield to his curiosity and remain. But the centurion, disapproving of such freedom, made a lunge at him with the small sword, before which the dwarf retired with a precipitate leap, and joined the bondwoman and armor bearer outside. Then the father, being left alone with his daughter, embraced her, and uttered such words of welcome as his rough nature suggested.

As regarded his intercourse with her, perhaps the most noticeable traits were the mingled reverence and familiarity with which he treated her. It seemed as though he was actuated by an ever-pervading consciousness that her exalted position demanded the observance of the deepest respect toward her; but that this feeling was connected in his mind with an unceasing struggle to remember that, after all, she was his own child, and as such was not entitled to any undue consideration from him. Upon the present occasion, he first timidly touched her cheek with his lips and uttered a gentle and almost courtly salutation; but immediately recollecting himself, and appearing to become impressed with the belief that his unwitting deference was unworthy of the character of a father, he proceeded to atone for the mistake by a rough and discomposing embrace, and such a familiar and frolicksome greeting as none but a camp follower would have felt flattered with. Then, seating himself before her, he commenced his conversation in a rude and uncouth tone, and with rather a forced affectation of military bluntness; from which, however, as his eye dwelt upon the richness of her apparel and his mind began to succumb to the charm of her native refinement, he gradually and unconsciously subsided, in turn, into his former soft and deferential manner.

'And so the imperator Sergius Vanno has returned,' he said, rolling upon his tongue, with evident satisfaction, that high-sounding title—once the acknowledged appellation of a conqueror, but now claimed as a right by the imperial line alone, and no longer elsewhere bestowed except as an informal and transitory compliment. 'It was a splendid ovation, and well earned by a glorious campaign. There is no one in all the Roman armies who could have managed it better.'

Nevertheless, with unconscious inconsistency, he immediately began to show wherein the campaign could have been improved, and how many gross mistakes were visible in every portion of it—how the force of Mutius should have been diverged more in advancing inland—how, in the battle along the shore, the three-oared galleys of Agricola should have been drawn up to support the attack—the consequence of this omission, if the leading cohort had met with a repulse—and the like. All this he marked out upon the floor with a piece of coal, taking but little heed that Ænone could not follow him; and step by step, in the ardor of criticism, he advanced so far that he was soon ready to prove that the campaign had been most wofully misconducted, and was only indebted to accident for success.

'But it is of little use for me to talk, if I cannot act as well,' he at length concluded, rising from the floor. 'And how could I act any part, placed as I am? The father of the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno should be the leader of a cohort rather than of a mere century; and be otherwise lodged than in this poor place. Then would they listen to him.'

He spoke bitterly and enviously, exhibiting in his whole tone as well as in his words his besetting weakness. For a while Ænone did not answer. It was as far from her duty as from her taste and pleasure to remind him, even if she could have done so to his comprehension, that her husband had already advanced him as far as was possible or fitting, and had otherwise provided for him in various ways as well as could reasonably be expected. The views of the centurion were of a far different nature. In giving his daughter to the patrician he had meanly intended thereby to rise high in life—had anticipated ready promotion beyond what his ignorance would have justified—had supposed that he would be admitted upon an equal social footing among the friends of Sergius, not realizing that his own native roughness and brutishness must have forbidden such a connection—had dazzled his eyes too wilfully with pictures of the wealth and influence and glory that would fall to his lot. As long, therefore, as so many of those gilded imaginings had failed in their promise, it seemed as nothing to him that Sergius, in the first flush of admiration for the daughter, had removed the father from rough provincial to more pleasing and relaxing urban duties, had purchased him a house befitting his station, and had lightened his condition in various ways.

'But we are gradually doing better,' Ænone said at length, striving to cheer him by identifying her fortunes more nearly with his own, 'This is a finer place than we had to live in at Ostia. Think how narrow and crowded we were then. And now I see that we have a new slave to open for us, while at Ostia we had only old Mitus. Indeed, we are very comfortable.'

'Ay, ay,' growled the centurion; 'a new slave—a dwarf or idiot, or what not—just such a creature as would not bring five sestertia in the market; and, therefore, the imperator has cast him to me, like a bare bone to a dog. Tell him I thank him for the gift. And in this matter it has been with me as always heretofore—either no luck at all, or too much. How often have I not passed a campaign without taking a prisoner, while they fell in crowds to all around me? And when at last I gained my share, when was it ever of any value to me, being hundreds of miles from a market? And here it is the same again. For months, no slave at all; and then all at once there are two, and I shall be,eaten out of my house.'

'Two, father?'

'Listen to me. No sooner did your honored lord send me this dwarf, than arrives Tisiphon of the twelfth cohort. He had long owed me a slave; and now that a captive, poor and feeble, and likely to die, had fallen into his hands, he thought it a fair opportunity to acquit himself toward me. But for once Tisiphon has cheated himself. The slave he brought was weak and sick, but it was only from want of food and rest. The fellow will recover, and I will yet make much of him. Would you see him? Look out of the back window there. He will turn out a fine slave yet, and, if this dwarf had not come, would be right pleasing to me. But two of them! How shall I find bread for both?'

Ænone walked to the window, and leaned out. The courtyard behind was but limited in size, containing a few squares of burnt brick arranged for pavement around a small plot of grass at the foot of a single plane tree. The slave of whom the centurion spoke was seated upon this plot, with his back against the tree, and his head bent over, while, with vacant mind, he watched the play of a small green lizard. As she appeared at the window, he raised his eyes toward her, then dropped them again upon the ground. It was hardly, in fact, as much as could be called a look—a mere glance, rather, a single tremor of the drooping lid, a mute appeal for sympathy, as though there had been an inner instinct which, at that instant, had directed him to her, as one who could feel pity for his trouble and desolation. But at that glance, joined to something strangely peculiar in the captive's figure and attitude, a nervous thrill shot through Ænone's heart, causing her to hold her breath in unreasoning apprehension; a fear of something which she could not explain, a dim consciousness of some forgotten association of the past arising to confront her, but which she could not for the moment identify. And still she looked out, resisting the impulse of dread which bade her move away, fixing a strained gaze upon the captive, in a vain struggle to allay, by one moment of calm scrutiny, that phantom of her memory which, act as she might, would not be repressed, but which each instant seemed to expand into clearer certainty before her.

'Do you see him? Does he appear to you a worthy slave?' cried the centurion.

'A worthy slave, indeed,' she answered, in a low tone, feeling compelled to make some response.

At her voice, the captive again raised his head, and looked into her face; not now with a hasty, timid glance, but with the full gaze of one who believes he has been spoken to, and waits for a renewal of the question. And as she met the inquiring look, Ænone turned away and sank back in terror and dismay. She knew it all, now, nor could she longer deceive herself by vain pretences or assurances. The instinct which, at the first had filled her soul with that unexplained dread, had not been false to her. For that glance, as it now rested upon her with, longer duration and deeper intensity, too surely completed the suggestion which, at the first it had faintly whispered to her, flashing into her heart the long-stifled memories of the past, recalling the time when, a few years before, she had sat upon the rock at Ostia, and had gazed down upon eyes lifted to meet her own with just so beseeching an appeal, and telling her too truly that she stood again in the presence of him to whom she had then promised her girlish faith, and whom she had so long since looked upon as dead to her.

'I will call him in,' said the centurion, 'and you can see him closer.'

'Nay, nay, father; let him remain where he is,' she exclaimed, in uncontrollable dread of recognition.

'Ha! art not afraid, girl?' demanded the old man. 'He can do no hurt, even were he stronger; and now that he is weak, a child could lead him with a string. Come hither, sirrah!'

The captive arose, smoothed down his tunic, and, obediently entering the house, awaited commands; while Ænone, with as quiet movement as possible, shrunk, into the most distant corner of the room. What if he should recognize her, and should call upon her by name, not knowing her changed position, or recollecting his own debasement into slavery? What explanation other than the true one could she give to account for his audacity, and save him from the chastisement which the offended centurion would prepare to bestow upon him? This was but a momentary fear, however, since she felt that the increasing glow of evening, added to her own alteration by dress, and the certainty that he would not expect to meet her thus, found a sure protection against recognition, as long as she took care not to risk betrayal by her voice or manner. And, perhaps, after all—and her heart lightened somewhat at the thought—it might be that her reason had too freely yielded to an insane fancy, and allowed her to be deceived by a chance resemblance.

'How is he called?' she inquired, disguising her voice as thoroughly as she could. The instant she had spoken she would have retracted her words, if possible, from the mere fear lest her father, in his response, might mention her name. But it luckily chanced that the centurion did not do so.

'How is he called? Nay, that thing I had not thought to ask as yet. Your name, slave?'

'Cleotos.'

At the word, the blood again flew back to her heart. There could now no longer be a doubt. How often had she repeated that name endearingly, in those early days of her first romance in life!

'Cleotos,' said the centurion. 'It is a brave name. There was once a leader of a full phalanx with that name, and he did well to the empire. It is, therefore, scarcely a name for a slave to bear. But we will talk some other time about that. It is of thine appearance now, that we will speak. Is he not, after all, a pleasing youth? Did Tisiphon so surely deceive me as he intended, when he gave the man to me? See! there is but little brawn and muscle to him, I grant; and therefore he will not make a good gladiator or even spearman; but he has a comely shape, which will fit him well for a page or palace usher. And, therefore, I will sell him for such. He should bring a good price, indeed, when the marks of his toil and sickness have gone off from him, and he has been fattened into better condition. But two of them!' continued the centurion, suddenly recurring to his former source of grief. 'How can I fatten him when there are two of them? How find bread for both? And yet he is not so very thin, now. I will light a lamp, daughter, for it has grown quite dark, and you shall come nearer and examine him.'

'Nay! nay!' exclaimed Ænone, in hurried resistance of this new danger. 'Not now. I am no judge of the merits of captives, and it is getting late. I know that my lord will be expecting me, and perchance will be vexed if I delay.'

'Be it so, then,' responded the other. 'And as it is dark, it is not befitting that you should go without escort. Take, therefore—'

'I have the armor bearer for my escort, father.'

'It is something, but not enough,' said the centurion. 'Enough for safety, but not for dignity. Remember that, while on the one hand you are the wife of the imperator Sergius Vanno, you are also a daughter of the house of Porthenus—a family which was powerful in the far-off days of the republic, long before the house of Vanno had begun to take root,' he continued, in a tone of pride. For then, as now, poverty consoled itself for its privations by dreams—whether well or ill founded, it mattered but little—of grandeurs which had once existed; and it was one of the weaknesses of the centurion to affect superiority of blood, and try to believe that therein he enjoyed compensations beyond anything that wealth could bestow.

'Of the house of Porthenus,' he repeated, 'and should therefore be suitably attended. So let this new slave follow behind. And take, also, the dwarf. He is not of soldierly appearance, but for all that he will count as one more.'

Fearful of offending her father by a refusal, or of encountering additional risks of recognition by a more prolonged conversation at the doorway, now brightened by the light of the newly risen moon, Ænone hastily assented, and started upon her homeward route. Clinging closely to the side of her bondwoman, not daring to look back for a parting adieu to her father, who stood at the door leaning upon his sword, and grimly smiling with delight at fancying his child at last attended as became a scion of the house of Porthenus—not regarding the half-smothered oaths and exclamations of contempt with which the armor bearer behind her surveyed his two new companions upon guard—she pressed rapidly on, with the sole desire of reaching her house and secluding herself from further danger of recognition.

The moon rose higher, silvering the city with charms of new beauty, gleaming upon the surface of the swift-rolling Tiber, giving fresh radiance to the marble palaces and temples, adding effect to whatever was already beautiful, diminishing the deformity of whatever was unlovely, even imparting a pleasant aspect of cheerfulness to the lower quarters of the city, where lay congregated poverty and dishonor and crime. The Appian Way no longer swarmed with the crowd that had trodden it an hour ago. The priests had completed the sacrifice and left the temple, the bathers had departed, the slaves no longer lingered upon the porticos, and the riders in gay chariots no more were to be seen. A calmer and more quiet occupancy of the street had ensued. Here and there a soldier paced to and fro, looking up at the moon and down again, at the glistening river, and thought, perhaps, upon other night watches in Gallia, when just such a moon had gleamed upon the silver Rhone. Here and there two lovers, loth to abandon such a pleasant light and warmth, strolled slowly along, and, as lovers have ever done, bade the moon witness their vows. But not the river or the moonlight did Ænone now linger to look upon, nor lovers' vows did she think about, as she glided hastily toward her own home. The peacefulness and quiet of nature found no response in her heart. Her only emotion was one of dread lest each ray of light might shine too brightly upon her—lest even her walk might betray her—lest every sound might be an unguarded recognition from the poor, unconscious captive behind her.

At length she reached her home, passed up the broad flight of steps in front, and stood panting within the doorway. A momentary pause ere she entered, and then, unable to continue the control which she had so far maintained over herself, she turned and cast one hasty, curious glance below. The two new slaves of the centurion stood side by side in the street, gazing up at the palace walls, the dwarf with a grin of almost idiotic glee, the other with a grave air of quiet contemplation. But what was that sudden look of startled recognition that suddenly flashed across the features of the latter? Why did his face turn so ghastly pale in the moonlight, and his limbs seem to fail him, so that he grasped his companion's arm for support? Ænone shrank terrified into the obscurity of the doorway.

But in an instant she recovered her self-possession. It must be that he had been faint or giddy, nothing more. It could not have been recognition that had startled him from his earnest contemplation, for he had not been looking toward her, but, with his body half turned away, had been gazing up at the highest story of the palace.

CHAPTER VI.

And now, having avoided the immediate peril of recognition, Ænone turned into the palace. Even there, however, her disordered fancy pictured dangers still encompassing her. How, after all, could she feel sure that she had not been known? During that clear moonlight passage along the Appian Way, what revelations might not have been made by a chance look or gesture! At the very first she had almost stumbled upon the truth merely through the magic of one upward glance of the eye of the wearied slave; why, then, might she not have unconsciously revealed herself to him by even a wave of the hand or a turn of the instep, or by some other apparently trivial and unimportant motion? And if so, at what instant might he not forget his fallen condition, and disregard not only his safety but her reputation, by pressing into the palace and claiming the right of speech with her? Rasher deeds were not seldom done under the promptings of desperation. Trembling beneath the sway of such imaginings, each footfall that resounded in the hall seemed like the light and buoyant step of him who had trodden with her the sands of Ostia—each figure that passed by bore, for the instant, the outline of his form—even at the open window the well-known face seemed to peer in at every corner and watch her.

This paroxysm of terror gradually passed away, but was succeeded by other fancies equally productive of inquietude. What if the captive, having recognized her, had whispered his story to the companions with whom he had walked! He would surely not do so if he still loved her; but what if his love had ceased, and he should be meanly desirous of increasing his own importance by telling how he, a slave, had been the chosen lover of the proudly allied lady before him? Nay, he would never act thus, for it would be a baseness foreign to his nature; and yet have not men of the most lofty sense of honor often fallen from their original nobility, and revelled in self-degradation? And it somehow seemed as though, at the last, the dwarf had looked up at her with a strangely knowing leer. And was it merely her imagination that made her think there was a certain sly approach to undue familiarity in the usually deferential deportment of the armor bearer?

With the next morning, however, came more composed reflections. Though the forebodings of the evening had naturally tinged her dreams with similar vague imaginings of coming trouble, yet, upon the whole, her sleep had brought rest, and the bright sunlight streaming in at the window drove away the phantoms which, during the previous gloom, had so confusedly disported themselves in her bewildered brain. She could now indulge in a more cheering view of her situation; and she felt that there was nothing in what had transpired of sufficient importance, when coolly weighed and passed upon, to make her anxious or afraid.

In a sick and travel-worn slave she had recognized one to whom, in her younger days, she had plighted her faith, and who had, in turn, given his faith to her. He was now a captive, and she had become one of the nobles of the empire. But his evil lot had not been of her procuring, being merely one of those ill fortunes which are cast broadly over the earth, and whose descent upon any one person more than upon another can be attributed to destiny alone. Nor, in accepting her high position, had she been guilty of breach of faith, for she had long awaited the return of her lover, and he had not come. And through all those years, as she had grown into more mature womanhood, she had vaguely felt that those stolen interviews had been but the unreasoning suggestions of girlish romance, too carelessly indifferent to the exigencies of poverty and diverse nationality; and that, if he had ever returned to claim her, mutual explanation and forgetfulness could have been their only proper course. There was, therefore, nothing for which she could reproach herself, or for which he could justly blame her, were he to recognize her as the wife of another man.

But there was little chance, indeed, that such a recognition could take place. Certainly, now that, apart from her troubled and excited fears of the previous day, she more deliberately weighed the chances, she felt assured that in her rapid passage through the evening gloom, nothing could have betrayed her. And it was not probable that even in open daylight and in face-to-face encounter with him he would be likely to know her. She had recognized him almost at a glance, for not only was his dress composed of the same poor and scant material which had served him years before, but even in form and feature he seemed unchanged, his slight frame having gained no expansion as his manhood had progressed, while his face retained in every line the same soft and almost girlish expression. But with herself all things had altered. It was not merely that the poorly clad maiden who, with naked feet, well-tanned hands, and tangled and loosely hanging curls, had been wont to wander carelessly by the shore of a distant bay, had become a richly adorned matron of the imperial centre. Beyond all that, there was a greater change, which, though in its gradual progress almost inappreciable to one who had watched her day by day, could not but be remarked after a lapse of many years. The darker hair, the softer complexion, the suave smile into which the merry laugh of girlhood had little by little subsided, the more composed mien, replete with matronly dignity, the refinement of air and attitude insensibly resulting from long continued instinctive imitation, the superior development of figure—all these, as they were improvements in her former self, were also just so many effective disguises upon which she could safely rely, unless she were to provoke inordinate scrutiny by some unguarded action or expression. But all this she would earnestly guard against. She would even put no trust in the natural immunity of which her reason assured her, but would make everything doubly safe by totally refraining from any encounter with one whose recognition of her would be so painful.

This she could do, and yet not fail in any friendly duty which the remembrance of their former love might enjoin upon her. Unseen in her retirement, she could watch over and protect him, now that in his sorrow and degradation he so greatly needed a friend. She could ameliorate his lot by numberless kindnesses, which he would enjoy none the less for being unable to detect their source. She would cunningly influence her father to treat him with tenderness and consideration. And when the proper time arrived, and she could take her measures without suspicion, she would herself purchase his freedom, and send him back rejoicing to his native land. And when all this was done, and he should again have reached his home, perhaps she might then write to him one line to tell him who it was that had befriended him, and that she had done so in memory of olden times, and that now, when she was so far removed from him, he should give her one kind thought, utter a prayer to the gods in her behalf, and then forget her forever.

So much for her security and her friendly duty. As for the feelings of her heart, she was at rest. Strong in self-confidence, she had no fear that her mind could be influenced to stray from its proper path. It is true that during the previous evening, in the first tumult of troubled thought, she had felt a vague presentiment that a day of temptation might be before her, not as the result of any deliberate choice upon her part, but rather as a cruel destiny to be forced upon her. But now the current of her mind moved more clearly and unobstructedly; and she felt that however chance might control the worldly prosperity of each one, the will and strength to shape his own destiny, for good or evil, are still left to him unimpaired. Away, then, with all thoughts of the past. In her heart there could be but one affection, and to her life there could be but the one course of duty, and in that she would steadfastly walk.

Strengthened, therefore, with the well-assured belief that the impulsive affection of her youth had become gradually tempered by lapse of years into a chaste and sisterly friendship, and that the pleasant memories which clustered about her heart and made her look back half regretfully upon those former days would be cherished only as the mere innocent relics of a girlish romance, she felt no fear that her faith could be led to depart from its lawful allegiance. But aside from all this, there lurked within her breast an uneasy sense of being the holder of a great secret which, in the end, would surely crush her, unless she could share its burden with another. In this desire for confidence, at least, there could be no harm; and her mind rapidly ran over the array of her few friends. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her isolation from close and unfettered companionship with others was forced upon her attention, and her soul grew faint as she thought upon her dependence upon herself alone for comfort or advice. To whom, indeed, could she venture to pour out her heart? Not to her father, who, with unreasoning ignorance and little charity, would coarsely form base conclusions about her, and would most likely endeavor to solve the problem by cruelty to the unfortunate slave who had so unwittingly originated it. Not to any of those matrons of whom her rank made her the associate; and who, after gaining her confidence, would either betray it to others, or else, wrongly misconstruing her, and fancying her to be influenced by scruples which they might not have felt, would scarcely fail to ridicule and cast disdain upon all the most tender emotions of her heart. And above all others, not to her husband, to whom, if she dared, she would have wished to reveal everything, but who had, she feared, at the bottom of his soul, a jealous and suspicious nature, which would be sure to take alarm, and cause him to look upon her story, not as a generous confidence bestowed in the hope of comfort and assistance, but rather as a cunningly devised cover for some unconfessed scheme of wrong against him.

Burdened by these reflections, Ænone slowly passed from her room into the antechamber. Lifting her eyes, she there saw her husband standing at the window, and, at the distance of a pace or two from him, a female figure. It was that of a girl of about eighteen years, small, light, and graceful. Her costume, though not in form such as belonged to the freeborn women of Rome, was yet far superior in richness of material to that usually worn by persons of low degree, and was fashioned with a taste which could not fail to assist the display of her graceful perfection of form, indicated in part by the rounded lines of the uncovered neck and arms. As Ænone entered the room, Sergius advanced, and, taking her by the hand, said:

'Yonder is a new slave for you—the present about which I yesterday spoke. I trust it will prove that during my absence I was not unmindful of you. It was at Samos that I obtained her. There, you may remember, we tarried, after taking the town and burning part of the fleet.'

Samos! Where had Ænone heard that place mentioned? Searching into the recesses of her memory, it at last flashed upon her. Was it not from Samos that he—Cleotos—had come? And was it fate that forced the recollection of him ever upon her? She turned pale, but by a violent effort succeeded in maintaining her self-possession and looking up with a smile of apparent interest upon her husband as he spoke.

'She had nearly fallen the prey of one of the common soldiers,' he continued; 'but I, with a few pieces of gold, rescued her from him, picturing to myself the gratification you would feel at being so fitly attended. And that you might the better appreciate the gift, I have retained her till to-day before showing her to you, in order that you might first see her recovered from the toil of travel and in all her recovered beauty. A rare beauty, indeed, but of a kind so different from thine that your own will be heightened by the contrast rather than diminished. How many sestertia I have been offered for her, how many high officers of my forces have desired to obtain her for service upon their own wives, I cannot now remember. But I have refused and resisted all, for I would that you should be known throughout all Rome by the beauty of those in waiting about you, even as you are now known by your own beauty. Pray, accept of her, therefore, as your attendant and companion, for it would sorely disappoint me were you to reject such a pleasing gift.'

'Let it be as my lord says,' responded Ænone. 'And if I fail in due utterance of my thanks, impute it not to want of appreciation of the gift, but rather to inability of proper expression.'

It was with real gratitude that Ænone spoke; for, at the instant, a thought of cheering import flashed upon her, swelling her heart with joy, and causing her to welcome the captive girl as a gift from the gods. Here, perhaps, as though in direct answer to her prayer for sympathy, might be the one for whom her heart had been longing; coming to her, not laden with any of that haughty pride and ill-befitting knowledge with which the Roman world about her reeked, but rather as she herself had once come—with all her unstained provincial innocence of thought yet nestling in her shrinking soul—one, like herself, an exile from a lowly state, and with a heart filled with those simple memories which must not be too carelessly exposed—so seldom do they gather from without anything but cruel ridicule or cold lack of comprehension—one whom she could educate into an easy intimacy with her own impulses and yearnings, and thus, forgetting all social differences, draw closer and nearer to her as a friend and confidant.

As she thus reflected, she felt the soft pressure of lips upon her left hand, which hung idly at her side, and, looking down, she saw that the captive girl had knelt before her, and, while lightly grasping her fingers, was gazing up into her face with a pleading glance. Ænone's first impulse was to respond with eager warmth to that humble appeal for protection and friendship; and had it not been for the morbid fear she felt lest her husband, who stood looking on, might chide such familiarity, or at the least might cast ridicule upon the feeling which prompted it, she would have raised the captive girl and folded her in her arms. As it was, the impulse was too spontaneous and sudden to be entirely resisted, and she held forth her other hand to lift the kneeling figure, when a strange, intuitive perception of something which she could scarcely explain, caused her to withhold further action.

Something, she knew not what, in the attitude and expression of the captive before her, which sent her warm blood flowing back with a chilled current—something which told her that her hopes of the moment had been smitten with decay as suddenly as they had been raised, and that, instead of a friend, she had perhaps found an enemy. The full dark eye yet gazed up at her with the same apparent moistened appeal for friendly sympathy; but to Ænone's alarmed instinct it now seemed as though behind that glance there was an inner depth of cold, calculating scrutiny. Still, almost unheeding the gentle gesture of the hand extended to raise her, the Greek knelt upon the floor, and, with an appearance of mingled timorousness and humility, laid her lips upon the gathered fingers; but now there appeared to be no natural warmth or glow in the pressure or real savor of lowliness in the attitude, but rather a forced and studied obsequiousness. For the instant Ænone paused, as though uncertain how to act. Then, fearing to betray her doubts, and hoping that her startled instinct might have deceived her, she bent forward once more and raised the captive to her feet.

It had all been the work of an instant; passing so quickly that the pause between the impulse and its completion could hardly have been noticed. But in that instant a change had swept over the expressions of both; and as they now stood opposite and gazed more intently upon each other, the change still progressed. The face of the young Roman matron, but a moment before so glowing with sympathy and radiant with a new-discovered hope of future happiness, now seemed to shrink behind a veil of despairing dread—the fear chasing away the joy as the shadow flits along the wall and banishes the sunlight; while, though every feature of the Greek still seemed clothed with trembling humility, yet, from some latent depths of her nature, a gleam of something strangely wild and forbidding began to play upon the surface, and invest the moistened eye and quivering lip with an undefinable repulsive harshness.

'Your name?' said Ænone, rousing herself with exertion, as though from a painful dream.

'Leta, my lady,' was the reply, uttered in a tone of despairing sadness, and with eyes again cast upon the floor.

'Leta,' repeated Ænone, touched in spite of her forebodings by that guise of an unhappiness which might, after all, be real. 'It is a fair-sounding name, and I shall call you always by it. Poor girl! you are an exile from your native land, and I—I cannot call myself a Roman. We must be friends—must we not?'

She spoke rather in the tone of one hoping against evil auguries than as one indulging in any confident anticipations of the future. The Greek did not answer, but again slowly raised her eyes. At first, as before, with the same studied expression of pleading humility; but, as she glanced forward, and saw Sergius standing behind, and gazing at her with an admiration which he did not attempt to dissemble, a strange glow of triumph and ambitious hope seemed to light up her features. And when, after a hasty glance of almost responsive meaning toward Sergius, she again looked into the face of the other, it was no longer with an assumption of humble entreaty, but rather with an expression of wild, searching intensity. Before it the milder gaze of Ænone faltered, until it seemed as though the two had suffered a relative interchange of position: the patrician mistress standing with troubled features, and with vague apprehension and trembling in her heart, and as though timorously asking for the friendship which she had meant to bestow; and the captive, calmly, and with a look of ill-suppressed triumph, reading the other's soul as though to learn how she could most readily wield supremacy over her.

'OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS; OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES.'

In the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1863, is an article with the above caption, in which the author, we think, develops ideas and theories totally at variance with the spirit of our Government, and which, if acted upon, and followed to their legitimate results, tend to subvert that self-government which is the privilege and pride of the American citizen. The result of his reflection is, that the States which, more conveniently than accurately, are termed the rebel States, have practically become Territories, and as such are to be governed by Congress. Is this proposition true? Let us examine—not hastily, not rashly, not vindictively, or in a party spirit—but wisely, magnanimously, and lovingly, and see if there be not a truer conclusion and one more in accordance with the spirit of our republican Constitution.

When the rebel States (?) passed their respective ordinances of secession, what results flowed from the action? The political doctrine that the union of the States is not a mere confederation of separate States, but a consolidation, within the limits of the Constitution, of the different States, otherwise independent, into one nation, is now too well established to remain a subject of debate. We are not, therefore, members of a confederacy, but are a unit—one. It follows, as a matter of course, that no State can withdraw or hide itself from the control of the National Government. The ordinances of secession passed by the rebel States did not, therefore, affect the Federal authority. The broad and just ground taken by President Lincoln in his Inaugural Address was, that the rebel States were still in the Union; and it is, we apprehend, the only tenable ground of right upon which we can carry on the war in which we are now engaged. The Constitution of the United States requires (art. ii. sec. 3) that the President shall 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' When the present head of the executive came into office, in March, 1861, he found several of the States, having already seceded on paper, seeking to perfect their treason by 'the armed hand.' Lighthouses had been destroyed, or their beacon fires—the sentinels of the sea—shrouded in darkness, custom houses were given into rebel hands, the revenue cutters were surrendered, and deed followed deed in this dark drama of treason, until it was consummated by firing upon the unarmed Star of the West, while she was performing her errand of mercy, to relieve the hunger and reënforce the exhausted strength of the heroic little garrison of Fort Sumter. The plain and immediate duty of the President was, therefore, to call out the strength of the nation to assist him in 'taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.' And this brings us to the proposition that the Government is not engaged in a war of conquest with another nation, but in enforcing the laws in what is already a part of the Union.

The Constitution (art. ii. sec. 2) makes the President the 'commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States.' In the President, and in him alone, supremely, is vested the authority which is to conduct the course of war. Congress has the war-making power, but war once brought into being (if we may be allowed the expression), the manner in which it shall be conducted rests with the executive. It is, of course, to be conducted in accordance with the laws of nations and of civilized warfare. The first step necessary to enable the President to enforce the laws in the seceded States is to put down the military power by which their execution is resisted. That is now being done. By the 'necessity of war,' then, the executive is authorized to take such measures as may be necessary to put down the rebellion; and though no power is given him to appoint Governors over the States in ordinary times, it is given him, indirectly, but as surely as if expressly granted, to be used in times of actual war, by the clause of the Constitution which we have just quoted, making him commander-in-chief of the national military force. Whenever the States, or any of them, cease to be debatable ground—that is, when the military force of the rebellion is put down, the military necessity ceases, and with it the authority of the President to appoint military governors. Nor is there danger of encroaching upon the liberties of the nation; for, as the power attaches to the President, not in his capacity as the civil head of the nation, but as the military commander-in-chief, it ceases the moment military opposition is overcome. The fear of the Atlantic author would seem to be ill grounded, for we cannot believe that any military force could be raised by a despotic executive who might endeavor to place himself in absolute power, and we think there is little danger that the Government may 'crystallize into a military despotism.' Would supplies be granted by Congress; or, if granted, would not the people of a country which has sprung to arms only to defend a free government, be strong enough to resist any single military despot? Let the history of the present rebellion, in which a population of only eight millions, and that in the least defensible States of the Union, has resisted for nearly three years the combined power of all the other States, with a population of more than twenty millions, answer the question. The Atlantic writer admits the propriety of appointing military governors in the cases of Mexico and California before the latter was admitted as a State, but denies it in the cases of the rebel States, because they are States, and therefore (as he says) within the civil jurisdiction. But at the period to which we refer, Congress had jurisdiction over both California and Mexico by the express provision of the Constitution (art. iv. sec. 3), 'the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory or other property belonging to the United States.' If, then, the power of the President be admitted in the two cases referred to, it is even stronger in the cases of the rebel States, where no such power is given to Congress. And further it would seem that the act of admission to the Union would operate rather to take the Territory from under the jurisdiction of Congress, and give the right of government into the hands of the PEOPLE of the new State, even if their State officers did seek to betray them into treason. Our author asserts that 'there is no argument for military governors that is not equally strong for Congressional governments; but we suspect his mistake here, as, in fact, his whole theory comes from his neglect to note that this appointing power attaches to the President, not as the civil head of the nation, but as military commander-in-chief under the necessity of war.

To sum up the argument on this point, it stands thus: Neither Congress nor the President has power under the civil head to institute governments of their own in the rebel States: that power must arise, if at all, under the head of military necessity, and must attach to the commander-in-chief, viz., the President, and ceases the moment that necessity ceases. In the authority quoted from Chancellor Kent by the author of the Atlantic, we find nothing to shake our argument; for, though the power be, as the learned Chancellor says, 'to be exercised subordinate to the legislative powers of Congress,' still it is an executive power, and must be exercised by—must emanate from—the President. The same learned authority, from whose lucid and fascinating pages we enjoyed the first glimmerings of the 'gladsome light of jurisprudence,' says (vol. i. p. 264): 'The command and application of the public force, to execute the law, maintain peace, and resist foreign invasion, are powers so exclusively of an executive nature, and require the exercise of powers so characteristical of this department, that they have always been exclusively appropriated to it in every well-organized government upon earth.' Taking this provision of the Constitution, so interpreted by Chancellor Kent, as vesting the power exclusively in the executive, it only remains to be considered how far it is a necessity of war.

In all the rebel States there is a population, more or less dense, to be protected and governed; but what can a civil authority accomplish when the States are overrun by a military force which has so long defied the power of the army? Advancing as our armies conquer, and fleeing as they are overcome by the rebel hordes, it could accomplish nothing but its own ludicrous history and the fettering of the military power, which so eminently requires one secret and independent will. How little a military force so fettered by civil authorities could accomplish can hardly be fully realized but by those who, like the author, have summered and wintered upon the 'dark and bloody ground' of the rebellion. But, it will be asked, how are the rebel States to be governed when the military power of the rebellion is crushed, and the authority of the executive ceases with the necessity of war? No express power is given by the Constitution to Congress to govern any other territory than the District of Columbia, the dockyards, lighthouses, and lands ceded to the United States for similar purposes, and the territory not included in the several States, but belonging to the United States. Under these three heads is included all the territory over which Congress can claim jurisdiction by direct grant; and, by the Constitution (Amendments, art. x.), 'the powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' Unless, therefore, the rebel States have lapsed into Territories, Congress can have no authority over them, except the general powers which it may exercise over all the States of the Union. The question then arises, and it seems to be purely a legal one—have the rebel States lapsed into Territories?

We have already seen that the doctrine maintained by our Government is, that the rebel States have not, by their ordinances of secession, separated themselves from the Union, but that they are still in the Union. The ordinances of secession are, like any other unconstitutional law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, did the overt act of firing upon the flag of the United States operate more effectually to destroy the State identity? If they are incapable of separating themselves from the nation, and if, as is clearly the case, there is no power vested in the General Government to expel them from the Union, from what source does the power or act arise which destroys their identity? The rebel States are either in the Union or out of it. We cannot claim that they are in the Union for the purpose of enforcing submission, and then, when that object is accomplished, turn round and say they are out of it, and must be governed as Territories.

But it is a fixed fact, and history will so record it, that the voice of the people in the rebel States never concurred in the ordinances of secession. In the few cases where they were submitted to the popular vote, force was used to awe that vote into acquiescence; while in most cases they never were submitted to the form of such a vote; and why? Because the leaders in treason dared not trust the voice of the people: they knew too well that it would thunder a rebuke in their ears. They were merely the act of the individuals who were chosen as members of the several Legislatures, and who, in betrayal of their trust, sought to commit the States which they misrepresented to treason. In any one of the States which we have solecistically termed rebel States, we venture to assert that, if fairly and fully taken, the vote of the people at any time during the last five years, and now, would be, by a large majority, in favor of the Union. Wherever our armies have obtained a permanent footing, the people have, almost unanimously, given their expression of attachment to the old flag. Shall, then, the treason of those individuals who, for the time being, held the places of power in the rebel States, be construed to the prejudice of a whole people, who had no part nor lot in the crime, in face of the often declared law that a State cannot commit treason? If we turn to the fact that many, if not most of the citizens of the rebel States, have done treasonable acts under compulsion of those who were the leaders in the rebellion, we are met, at the very threshold, by no less an authority than Sir William Blackstone, who says (Bl. Commentaries, book iv. p. 21): 'Another species of compulsion or necessity is what our law calls duress per minias, or threats and menaces which induce fear of death or other bodily harm, and which take away, for that reason, the guilt of many crimes and misdemeanors, at least before the human tribunal. Therefore, in time of war or rebellion, a man may be justified in doing many treasonable acts by compulsion of the enemy or REBELS, which would admit of no excuse in the time of peace.' The fact that such violent compulsion was and still is used to overawe the Union sentiment of the South is patent. It has been and still is the cry, coming up on every breeze from that bloodstained land, that the leaders of the rebellion seek to crush, by whatever means, those who are

'Faithful among the faithless found.'

But, supposing for the moment that the majority of the citizens of the rebel States are, of their own free will, participators in the rebellion; where is the grant of power to Congress to establish a government in any of the rebel States? No clause of the Constitution gives it; and by the express terms of that instrument, 'all powers not granted by it to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' But, while no such power is granted by the Constitution to the Federal Government, it is, we think, strictly forbidden by that clause of the instrument which declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Would this injunction be complied with if Congress were to establish, directly, a government of its own over the rebel States? Would it not rather be a transgression of the provision? The essential nature of a republican government is that it is elective; but a Congressional government would be directly the reverse; for it takes the power from the hands of the people and places it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the United States; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee runs—not to the territory now composing the State, but to the State its very self—ei ipsi; as if the Constitution could not contemplate such a thing as a State being struck out of existence, under whatever phrase, whether of 'State forfeiture,' 'State suicide,' or 'State abdication,' even if treason were attempted by those in power. The Constitution still terms it a State. Is not the present precisely the event, or rather one of the events, which it contemplates and provides for? The doctrine of 'State Rights,' whether as contemplated and maintained by Calhoun in the days of Nullification, or as declared by Jefferson Davis and his compeers in treason, we abhor utterly, whenever and wherever it may lift its serpent head, and whether supported by Southern men with Southern principles, or by Northern men with no principles. But a true and indisputable doctrine of State Rights there is, which ought to be as jealously maintained and guarded as the doctrine of National Sovereignty. The Atlantic author asserts that, because the State offices in the rebel States have been vacated, therefore Congress has the authority to govern them, and intimates that all powers not reserved to the respective States belong to Congress, because there is no other to wield them. This is not true. Every power possessed of the Federal Government must be actually granted. It must attach to that Government, not because it belongs to no other, but because it is granted by the Constitution.

Our author quotes Mr. Phillimore as saying 'a state, like an individual, may die, by its submission and the donation of itself to another country.' Very true; but the word state must, in that sense, be equivalent to nation; and our author admits that a State cannot perform the first act necessary to be done in so giving itself away, viz., withdrawing itself from the Union. If, therefore, it cannot withdraw itself from the authority of the Federal Government, very clearly it cannot donate itself to the self-styled Confederate Government. If a thief sell or give his ill-gotten possession to another, it in no way affects the right of the owner. He cannot give away that which he does not own; and so of a State. Another error into which the Atlantic author has fallen, is that, in assigning the three sources of Congressional power, 'ample and hospitable,' he enumerates as one of them 'the necessity of the case;' but, as we have already seen, Congress possesses no powers but those expressly granted by the Constitution. If Congress may assert its authority in this instance, from the necessity of the case, and be itself the judge of that necessity, when no authority is given by the instrument, which expressly declares that all powers not granted by it are reserved, where are we to find a limit, and why may not that body assert itself in any number of instances, until, at length, the rights of the States are wholly absorbed by the overmastering power of the Federal Government? There is but one rightful source of authority to Congress, and that is the Constitution, which itself so declares, and which is the supreme law of the land.

But the true course to be pursued is, we think, to allow the rebel States (as indeed we cannot help doing) to be governed by the military power until such time as a civil government can be maintained, and then for the whole Government of the United States, legislative, judicial, and executive, to stand by, as the constitutionally appointed guardian, and permit THE PEOPLE to elect their own State officers. Whether the conventions of the people are called by law of Congress or by proclamation of the President, would seem to be immaterial, though the latter seems the least cumbersome method. Thus the rebel States would pass from rebel forms to constitutional ones, in a legal and formal manner. Sooner or later this must be done, even if, for a time, provisional governments are instituted; for no Congressional government can be an elective government, and hence not a constitutional one, because the elective principle is necessary to a republican form of government. But if, under the clause of the Constitution which enjoins upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to each State, conventions of the people be called to elect their own officers, they are at once put in possession of their constitutional rights. And how can a State be readmitted to a Union which it has never left?

The writer has no pet theory to maintain, but is, like the writer in the Atlantic, 'in search of truth;' and the views here expressed are the result, not merely of closet reflection, but of observation and experience in the seceded States, while 'marching under the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' If only, through this baptism of blood, the nation, freed at last from the blighting curse of slavery, and purified into a better life, shall lift her radiant forehead from the dust, and, crowned with the diadem of freedom, go on her glorious way rejoicing, the writer will count his past sufferings and shattered health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have contributed, however slightly, to purchase. Only to have contributed, however little, something for the peace—something for the glory—something for the permanence, beautiful and bright—of those institutions which are for America the pride of the past and the hope of the future, will be a joy through life and a consolation in death.

THE MOUND BUILDER.

INTRODUCTION.

All over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other Western States—but chiefly over these—are the monumental remains of an ancient race, long anterior to the present race of Indians, concerning whom we have no other record than that which is afforded by their mounds, earthworks, fortifications, temples, and dwelling places. Even these cannot at first be distinguished and identified the one from the other; and it takes a person skilled in such lore to determine the character and uses of the various mounds and groups of mounds, which he meets with at all points, and in all directions, as he traverses the wilderness.

I have lived a long time in the woods and prairies, following the occupation of a hunter, but with ulterior antiquarian and natural-history objects and purposes. From the time when I first heard of the mounds, which was in the year 1836, when I entertained, in my chambers in New York, an old frontiersman from Chicago—a fine, brave fellow, whose whole life was a romance of the highest and noblest kind—I resolved that as soon as fortune should favor me with leisure and opportunity, I would make a first-hand investigation of these curious antiquities, and try if I could render an intelligent exposition of their meaning. Twenty years passed away, and I was no nearer to the accomplishment of my purpose than I was in that notable year 1836, when the apocalypse of the West and its mystic mound seals were first revealed to me. At last, about four years ago, all things being favorable, I struck my tents in the big city—the wonderful Arabian Nights city of New York!-and, taking a sorrowful leave of my friends and literary associates, I set off for the region round about the Black River in Wisconsin. Here, among the bluffs and forests, within hailing distance of a prairie of some hundred thousand acres, I bought a well-cultivated farm of two hundred and eighty acres, bounded on the south by a deep, romantic ravine, at the bottom of which ran a delightful stream of water, full of trout, always cool and delicious to drink, and never known to be dry even in the fiercest summer droughts. A large log cabin, with a chimney opening in the kitchen, capable of conveying the smoke and flames of half a cord of wood burning at once on the hearthstones, and having other commodious conveniences, was my headquarters, and I intended it to be my permanent home. But thereby hangs a tale—which, though interesting enough, and full of romantic and startling episodes, I will not here and now relate, as being somewhat extraneous to the subject matter before us.

I had no sooner made all the dispositions necessary to the good husbanding of the farm, than I hired a half breed, well known in those parts, and subsequently a Winnebago Indian, to whose wigwam the half breed introduced me at my request. And with these two, the one a veritable savage, and the other very nearly related to him, I set off with a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a large tent, and abundance of provisions, on a journey of mound discoveries.

I have only space here to say that we traversed the whole of the north and west of the State of Wisconsin, and through the chief parts of Minnesota and Iowa; and that subsequently, about, eighteen months afterward, we visited the region of the Four Lakes, of which Madison is the centre, where there are hundreds of mounds, arranged in nearly every form and of nearly every animal device, which we had found in our previous travels.

I made drawings of all the remarkable groups which I met with; and, without going into particulars, I may give you some idea of their likelihood in the following summary: Mounds arranged in circles of three circles, with a large earthwork in the inner one; the outer circle containing sixty mounds, the second thirty, the first fifteen. I examined the earthwork, and found in it, about four feet below the surface, remains of charcoal and charred bones, burnt earth, and considerable quantities of mica. It had evidently been an altar or sacrificial mound—and I afterward, upon examination, found many such—but they were always enclosed by other mounds; and these (the outer mounds) contained nothing but earth, although there was this remarkable peculiarity about them, that the earth of which they were composed was altogether of a different nature from the surrounding earth, and must have been brought to that spot, as the old Druids brought the enormous blocks of stone which composed their temples and altars at Stonehenge, from an unknown distance.

Other mounds were arranged in squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Others, in a series of successive squares, about three feet apart, having an opening to the east and west, and terminating in a square of about fourteen feet in the centre, where a truncated mound is sure to be erected.

Others, formed a good deal like a Minié rifle ball, but with a more pointed apex, running on both sides of the earth effigy of a monstrous bear for upward of forty rods.

Others, shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, having walls of earthwork two feet high, of oblong shape, and enclosed on all sides except at the east and west, where there are entrances of about four feet in width.

Others, composed of hundreds of tons of earth, shaped like a tortoise, with truncated mounds all around it.

Others, fashioned like men, and Titans at that, some lying prone upon the prairie, others in the act of walking. The limbs clearly defined, the body vast and well moulded, like a huge colossus. One near Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin, discovered by Mr. William H. Canfield, and reported to the Philosophical Society by Mr. Lapham, of Milwaukee, was visited also by us. It is two hundred and fourteen feet in length; the head thirty feet long, the body one hundred feet, and the legs eighty-four. The head lies toward the south, and the motion (for he is represented in the act of walking) is westward. All the lines of this most singular effigy are curved gracefully, much care having very clearly been bestowed upon its construction. The head is ornamented with two projections or horns, giving a comical expression to the whole figure.

Near the old military road, about seven miles east of the Blue Mounds, in Dare County, Wisconsin, we found another man effigy. It lies in an east and west direction, the head toward the west, and the arms and legs extended. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, and is most carefully moulded and rounded; the head twenty-five feet; the elevation above the surface of the prairie nearly six feet.

On the north side of the Wisconsin River, about four miles west of the village of Muscoda, we heard of and found another human effigy. Its peculiarity was that it had two heads, and they reclined with a certain grace over the shoulders. The arms were not in proportion, nor fully represented. Length of body fifty feet, legs forty feet, arms one hundred and thirty feet; lying north and south, the head southward.

Others, a kind of hybrids, half man half beast or bird.

Others, representing birds with outstretched wings, like the forked-tail hawk or swallow.

Others, eagles without heads.

Others, coiled snakes, or outstretched snakes.

Others, elk or deer.

Clusters of mounds star shaped, seven in number, with the sun-shaped mound in the centre.

Others, representing mathematical symbols.

On the banks of the Black River, near the Ox Bow, are the remains of an elevated road, about three feet high and seven feet wide, extending for miles, intersected near the river by the great Indian war path. The settlers call it the Railroad, and it has all the appearance of a work of this nature, and is strongly and carefully built—a fine remain of the old mound builders' time.

Long lines of mounds, extending for scores and probably hundreds of miles, nearly all of the same shape, varying in their distance from each other from one to four miles.

Circular mounds of a base of two hundred feet, and a height of twenty feet.

Others, two hundred yards long, from ten to twenty feet wide, and from two to three feet high—these last, also, having an open space through them, as if intended for an entrance gate.

Others, in the form of rabbits, badgers, bears, and birds; others, of unknown monstrous animals.

We examined in all thirty-nine mounds; and in one, at the very base, on the floor of the natural earth upon which the mound was built (the soil of the mound being, as I said, always of a different character to the surrounding soil) we discovered and carried away with us the perfect skeleton of a man, with a few arrow heads made of flint, and a tobacco pipe, made also of stone, with a very small and narrow bowl, having a device on it like some of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt or old India.

In twelve we found skeletons, male and female, of the present race of Indians, with their bows and arrows, or, as was the case in four instances, their rifles and knives and tobacco pipes; some of these last elaborately carved in red stone. In Iowa we dug into a large mound, and discovered fragments of an ancient pottery, with the colors burned into the material, and various bones and skulls, arrow heads, and a flint knife, and saw.

We saw the painted rocks, also, on the Mississippi shores, near Prairie du Chien—said to be of an immemorial age—and the questions, Who was this old mound builder—whence did he come—when did he vanish from this continent? have haunted me ever since. That he was the primitive man of this planet, I think there is good reason to believe. Go where we will, to what portion soever of the earth, we shall find these mound evidences of his existence. In Asia, Europe, Africa, and all along the backbone of the American continent, he has established his record. Yet no one knows anything about him: all tradition even of him and of his works is lost. When Watkinson started from the middle of Asia to visit the newly acquired country of Russia—the beautiful, fruitful, invaluable country of the Amoor—he was confronted at the very outset by a cluster of seven of these very mounds, and his book, from that time forth, extending over thousands of miles, is full of descriptions of these unknown earthworks. I have no doubt they mark the progressive geographical movements of a race of men who came from Asia. From Behring's Strait to the Gulf they can easily be traced.

But I have said enough, and will stop here.

THE MOUND BUILDER.

Who art thou? old Mound Builder!
Where dost thou come from?
Womb of what country,
Womb of what woman
Gave birth to thee?
Who was thy sire?
Who thy sire's sire?
And who were his forbears?
Cam'st thou from Asia?
Where the race swarms like fireflies,
Where many races mark.
As with colored belts, its tropics!
What pigment stained thy skin?
Was it a red, or wert thou
Olive-dyed, or brassy?
Handsome thou couldst hardly have been,
With those high cheek-bones,
That mighty jaw, and its grim chops,
That long skull, so broad at the back parts,
That low, retreating forehead!
Doubtless thine eyes were dark,
Like fire-moons set in their sockets;
Doubtless thine hair was black,
Coarse, matted, long, and electric;
Thy skeleton that of a giant!
Well fleshed, well lashed with muscles,
As with an armor of iron;
And doubtless thou wert a brave fellow,
On the old earth, in thy time.

I think I know thee, old Mole!
Earth delver, mound builder, mine worker!
I think I have met thee before,
In times long since, and forgotten;
Many thousands of years, it may be,
Or ever old Noah, the bargeman,
Or he, the mighty Deucalion,
Wroth with the world as he found it,
Uprose in a passion of storm
And smote with his fist the sluices,
The water sluices of Cloudland—
Locked in the infinite azure—
Drowning the plains and mountains,
The shaggy beasts and hybrids,
The nameless birds—and the reptiles,
Monstrous in bulk and feature,
Which alone were thy grim contemporaries.
Here, in the State of Wisconsin,
In newly discovered America,
I, curious to know what secrets
Were hid in the mounds of thy building,
Have gone down into their chambers,
Into their innermost grave-crypts,
Unurning dry bones and skulls,
Fragments of thy mortality!
Oftentimes near to the surface
Of these thy conical earth-runes,
—For who shall tell their secret?—
Meeting with strange interlopers,
Bodies of red Winnebagoes,
Each with its bow and its arrows,
Each with its knife and its war gear,
Its porphyry-carved tobacco pipe,
Modern, I know by the fashioning.
Often, I asked of them,
As they lay there so silently,
So stiff and stark in their bones,
What right they had in these old places,
Sacred to dead men of a race they knew not?
And oh! the white laughters,
The wicked malice of the white laughters
Which they laughed at me,
With their ghastly teeth, in answer!
Was never mockery half so dismal!
As if it were none of my business.
Nor was it; save that I liked grimly to plague them,
To taunt them with their barbarity,
That they could not so much as dig their own graves,
But must needs go break those of the dead race,
Their far superiors, and masters in craft and lore!
And bury themselves there, just out of sight,
Where the vulture's beak could peck them,
Were he so obscenely minded,
And the wolf could scrape them up with his foot.

Curious for consideration
All this with its dumb recordings!
Very suggestive also,
The meeting of him, the first-born,
Who lived before the rainbow
Burst from the womb of the suncloud,
In the Bible days of the Deluge—
The meeting very suggestive
Of him, with the red Winnebago,
Such immemorial ages,
Cartooned with mighty empires,
Lying outstretched between them.
He, the forerunner of cities

—His mounds their type and rudiment—
And he, the fag-end of creation,
Meaningless sculpture of journeymen,
Doomed to the curse of extinction.
Curious, also, that I,
An islander from far-off Britain
Should meet them,
Or, the rude scrolls of them.
Both together in these wilds,
Round about the region of the Black River,
Cheek by jowl in a grave.

Who was the builder of the grave?
A primitive man, no doubt,
Of the stone era, it may be,
For of stone are his implements.
And not of metal-work, nor the device of fire.
He may have burrowed for lead
And dug out copper ore,
Dark-green as with emerald rust, from the mines
Long since forsaken, and but newly found
By the delvers at Mineral Point.
He, or his subsequents, issue of him,
I know not; and, soothe to say,
Shall never know.

Neither wilt thou ever know
Anything of me, old Mound Builder!
Of the race of Americans, nothing,
Who now, and ever henceforth,
Own, and shall own, this continent!
Heirs of the vast wealth of time
Since thou from the same land departed;
New thinkers, new builders, creators
Of life, and the scaffolds of life,
For far-off grand generations!
This skull which I handle!—
How long has the soul left it tenantless?
And what did the soul do in its house,
When this roof covered it?
Many things, many wonderful things!
It wrote its primeval history
Is earthworks and fortifications,
In animal forms and pictures,
In symbols of unknown meaning.

I know from the uncouth hieroglyphs,
And the more finished records,
That this soul had a religion,
Temples, and priests, and altars:
I think the life-giver, the sun,
Was the god unto whom he sacrificed.
I think that the moon and stars
Were the lesser gods of his worship;
And that the old serpent of Eden
Came in for a share of devotion.

I find many forms of this reptile,
Scattered along the prairies,
Coiled on the banks of the rivers,
In Iowa, and far Minnesota,
And here and there, in Wisconsin.
Now he is circular,
Gnawing his tail, like the Greek symbol,
Suggesting infinite meanings
Unto the mind of a modern
Crammed with the olden mythologies.
Now, uncoiled in the sunlight,
He stretches himself out at full length
In all his undulate longitude.
His body is a constellation of mounds,
Artfully imitative,
From the fatal tail to the more fatal head.
Overgrown they are with grass,
Short, green grass, thick and velvety,
Like well cared-for lawns,
With strange, wild flowers glittering,
Made up of alien mould
Brought hither from distant regions.

Curiously I have considered them,
Many a time in the summer,
Lying beside them under the flaming sky,
Smoking an old tobacco pipe,
Made by one of these moundsmen.
Who in his time had smoked it,
Perchance over the council fire,
Or in the dark woods where he had gone a-hunting;
In war time—in peaceful evenings,
With his squaw by his side,
And his brood of dusky papposins
Playing about in the twilight
Under the awful star-shadows.

It seemed that I was very close to him, at such times;
And that his thick-ribbed lips,
—Gone to dust for unknown centuries—
Had met mine inscrutably,
By a magic hid in the pipestem,
Making me his familiar and hail fellow.
Almost I felt his breath,
And the muffled sound of his heart-beats;
Almost I grasped his hand,
And shook the antediluvian,
With a shake of grimmest fellowship
Trying to cozen him of his grim secret.
But sudden the gusty wind came,
Laughing away the illusion,
And I was alone in the desert.

If he could only wake up now,
And confront me—that ancient salvage!
Resurgated, with his faculties
All quick about him, and his memories,
What an unheard-of powwow
Could I report to you, O friends of mine!
Who look for some revelation,
Some hint of the strange apocalypse,
Which the wit of this man, living
So near to the prime of the morning,
So near to the gates of the azure,
The awful gates of the Unseen—
Whence all that is seen proceeded—
Hath wrought in this new-found country!
I wonder if he would remember
Anything about the Land of the Immortals.
Something he would surely find
In the deeps of his consciousness
To wake up a dim reminiscence.
Dreamy shadows might haunt him,
Shadows of beautiful faces, and of terrible;
Large, lustrous eyes, full of celestial meanings,
Looking up at him, beseeching him,
From unfathomable abysses,
With glances which were a language.
The finalest secrets and mysteries,
Behind every sight, and sound, and color,
Behind all motions, and harmonies,
Which floated round about him,
Archetypes of the phenomenal!

Or, it might be, that coming suddenly in his mind
Upon some dark veil, as of Isis,
He lifts it with a key-thought,
Or the sudden memory of an arcane sign,
And beholds the gardens of Living Light,
The starry platform, palaces, and thrones—
The vast colossi, the intelligences
Moving to and fro over the flaming causeways
Of the kingdoms beyond the gates—
The infinite arches
And the stately pillars,
Upbuilt with sapphire suns
And illuminated with emerald and ruby stars,
Making cathedrals of immensity
For the everlasting worship without words.

All, or some, of the wondrous, impenetrable picture-land:
The crimson seas,
Flashing in uncreated light,
Crowded with galleons
On a mission to ports where dwell the old gods
And the mighty intellects of the Immortals.
The ceaseless occupations,
The language and the lore;
The arts, and thoughts, the music, and the instruments;
The beauty and the divine glory of the faces,
And how the Immortals love,
Whether they wed like Adamites,
Or are too happy to wed,
Living in single blessedness!
Well, I know it is rubbish,
The veriest star-dust of fancy,
To think of such a thing as this
Being a memorial heirloom of the fore-world,
Such rude effigies of men,
Such clodbrains, as these poor mound builders!

Their souls never had any priority in the life of them;
No background of eternity
Over which they had traversed
From eon to eon,
Sun-system to sun-system,
Planets and stars under them,
Planets and stars over them;
Now dwelling on immeasurable plains of azure
Bigger than space,
Dazzling with the super-tropical brightness
Of passionate flowers without a name,
In all the romance of color and beauty—
Now, in the cities celestial,
Where they made their acquaintances
With other souls, which had never been incarnated,
But were getting themselves ready
By an intuitive obedience
To a well-understood authority,
Which had never spoken,
To take upon themselves the living form
Of some red-browed, fire-eyed Mars-man,
Some pale-faced, languishing son
Of the Phalic planet Venus,
Or wherever else it might be,
In what remote star soever
Quivering on shadowy battlements.
Along the lines of the wilderness,
Of worlds beyond worlds,
These souls were to try their fortunes.

Surely, no experience of this sort
Ever happened unto them,
Although one would like to invest them
With the glory of it, for the sake of the soul.
But they were, to speak truth of them,
A sort of journeyman work,
Not a Phidian statuary,
But a first cast of man,
A rude draft of him;
Huge gulfs, as of dismal Tartarus,
Separating him from the high-born Caucasian.
He, a mere Mongolian,
As good, perhaps, in his faculties,
As any Jap. or Chinaman—
But not of the full-orbed brain,
Star-blown, and harmonious
With all sweet voices as of flutes in him,
And viols, bassoons, and organs;
Capable of the depths and circumferences of thought,
Of sphynxine entertainments,
And the dramas of life and death.

A plain fellow, and a practical,
With picture in him and symbol,
And thus not altogether clay-made,
But touched with the fire of the rainbow,
And the finger of the first light,
Waiting for the second and the third light,
Expectant through the ages,
And disappointed;
Never receiving more,
But going down, at last, a dark man,
And a lonely, through the dark galleries
Of death, and behind the curtain
Where all is light.

I like to think of him, and see his works:
I like to read him in his mounds,
And think I can make out a good deal of his history.
He was a half-dumb man,
Very sorrowful to see,
But brave, nevertheless, and bravely
Struggling to fling out his thoughts,
In a kind of dumb speech;
Struggling, indeed, after poetry
Dædalian forms, and eloquence;
Ambitious of distinguishing himself
In the presence of wolves and bisons
And all organic creatures;
Of making his claim good
Against these, his urgent disputants,
That he was lord of the planet.

If he could not write books,
He could scrawl the earth with his record:
He could make hieroglyphs,
Constellations of mounds and animals,
Effigies of unnamable things,
Monsters, and hybrids unnatural,
Bred of grotesque fancies; and man-forms.
These last, none of your pigmies
A span long in the womb,
And six feet, at full growth, out of it—
But bigger in chest and paunch,
In the girth of his muscular shackle-bones,
Round his colossal shoulders,
Round his Memnonian countenance,
Over the dome of his skull-crypts—
From crown to foot of his body—
Than grimmest of old Welsh giants,
Grimmest of Araby ogres!

Many a time talking with gray hunters,
Who leaned on their rifles against a tree,
And made the bright landscape
And the golden morning fuller of gold and brightness
By the contrast of their furrowed faces,
Their shaggy eyebrows,
And the gay humor laughing in their eyes,
Their unkempt locks, their powder horns, and buskins,
And the wild attire, in general, of their persons—
Many a time have I heard them
Tell of these man-effigies
Lying prone on the floors of the prairie.
And, in my whim for correspondence,
And perpetual seeking after identities,
I have likened them to the stone sculptures, in cathedrals,
Cut by pious hands out of black marble,
Memorial resemblances of holy abbots,
Of Christian knights, founders of religious houses,
Of good lords of fair manors,
Who left largess to these houses,
Beneficed the arched wine-cellars
With yearly butts of canary,
Or, during their lifetime,
Beautified the west front with stately windows
Of colored glass, emblazoned with Scripture stories,
The sunlight in shadowy reflections painting the figures
With blue and gold and crimson
Upon the cold slabs of the pavement.

These effigies, stiff, formal,
Rudely fashioned, and of poor art,
All of them lying, black and stark,
Like a corpse-pageantry visioned in some monk's dream,
Lying thus, in the transepts,
On the cold, gray floor of the cathedral.

A curious conceit, truly!
But the prairie is also consecrated,
And quite as sacred I think it
As Rome's most holy of holies.
It blossoms and runs over with religion.
These meek and beautiful flowers!
What sweet thoughts and divine prayers are in them!
These song birds! what anthems of praise
Gush out of their ecstatic throats!
I pray you, also, tell me,
What floors, sacred to what dead,
Can compare with the elaborate mosaic work
Of this wide, vast, outstretching floor of grass?
As good a place, I take it,
For the mound builder to make his man-effigies
Out of the mould in,
As the cathedral is, for its artists
To make man-effigies out of the black marble!
And the thought, too, is the same!
The thought of the primeval savage of the stone era,
Roaming about in these wilds,
Before the beautiful Christ
Made the soul more beautiful,
Revealed the terror of its divine forces,
Announced its immortality,
And was nailed on a tree for His goodness!
While the monk, therefore, lay yet in the pagan brain,
And' Time had not so much as thought
Of sowing the seed for his coming—
While his glorious cathedral, which, as we now know it,
Is an epic poem built in immortal stone,
Had no archetype except in the dreams of God,
Dim hints of it, lying like hopeless runes
In the forest trees and arches,
Its ornamentations in the snow drifts, and the summer leaves and flowers—
No doubt, the mound-builder's man, put in effigy on the prairie,
Had been a benefactor, in his way and time;
Or, a great warrior; or learned teacher
Of things symbolized in certain mound-groups,
And which, from their arrangement,
Appertain, it would seem, to mysteries,
And ghostly communications.
They thought to keep green his memory,
The worship of him and his good deeds,
Unto the end of time,
Throughout all generations.
The holy men, born of Christ,
All Christendom but the development of him,
And all the world his debtor;
Even God owing him more largely
Than He has thought fit to pay back,
Taking the immense credit
Of nigh two thousand years!
These holy men, so born and cultured,
Could think of no way wiser,
Of no securer method
Of preserving the memory of their saints,
And of those who did good to them,
Than this rude, monumental way of the savage.
So singular is man,
So old-fashioned his thinkings,
So wonderful and similar his sympathies!
Everywhere the same, with a difference;
Cast in the same moulds,
Of the same animal wants, and common mind,
Of the same passions and vices,
Hating, loving, killing, lying—
A vast electrical chain
Running through tradition, and auroral history,
Up through the twilights,
And blazing noons,
Through vanishing and returning twilights,
Through azure nights of stars—
Epochs of civilization—
Unto the calmer glory,
Unto the settled days,
Unto the noble men—
Nunc formosissimus annus!

Thus do I, flinging curiously the webs of fancy
Athwart the time-gulfs, and the ages,
Reconcile, after a kind, the primitive savage of America
With the wonderful genealogies—
Upsprung from the vital sap
Of the great life-tree, Igdrasil!
Thick and populous nations
Heavily bending its branches,
Each in its autumn time of one or two thousand years,
Like ripe fruits, fully developed and perfected,
From the germ whence they proceeded;
Nourished by strong saps of vitality,
By the red, rich blood of matured centuries,
By passionate Semitic sunlights;
Beautiful as the golden apples of the Hesperides!
Radiating, also, a divine beauty,
The flower-blossom and the aroma,
The final music, of a ripe humanity,
Whereof each particular nation
Was in its way and turn
The form and the expression,

Grand autumns were some of them!
Grand and beautiful, like that of Greece,
Whose glorious consummation always reminds me
Of moving statues, music, and richest painting and architecture:
Her landscapes shimmering in golden fire-mists,
Which hang over the wondrously colored woods,
In a dreamy haze of splendor;
Revealing arched avenues, and tiny glades,
Cool, quiet spots, and dim recesses,
Green swards, and floral fairy lands,
Sweeping to the hilltops;
Illuminating the rivers in their gladsome course,
And the yellow shadows of the rolling marshes,
And the cattle of the farmer as they stand knee-deep
Switching their tails by the shore;
Lighting up the singing faces,
The sweet, laughing, singing faces,
Of the merry, playful brooks,
Now running away over shallows,
Now into gurgling eddies;
Now under fallen trees,
Past beaver dams long deserted;
Now under shady banks,
Lost in the tangled wood-growths;
Quivering now with, their laughter,
Out in the open meadow,
Flowing, singing and laughing,
Over the weeds and rushes,
Flowing and singing forever!

Plastic and beautiful, and running over
With Schiller's 'play impulse,' was the genius of Greece,
Of which her institutions and civility were the embodiment.
Other autumn times of the nations
Were calm and peaceful,
Symbolized above, as fruit on the branches
Of the life-tree, Igdrasil!
And when their time came,
They dropped down silently,
Like apples from their boughs on the autumn grass;
Silently dropped down, on moonlight plains,
In the presence of the great company of the stars,
And the flaming constellations,
Which evermore keep solemn watch over their graves.
Others were blown off suddenly,
And prematurely—all the elements enraged against them;
And others, like the Dead Sea fruit,
Were rotten at the heart before their prime!

The old mound builder stands at the base of the tree,
At the base of the wonderful tree Igdrasil,
And the mighty branches thereof,
Which hang over his head in flame-shadows,
Germinated, and blossomed with nations,
In other lands, in another hemisphere
Far away, over the measureless brine,
From the mother earth where he was planted,
Where he grew and flourished,
And solved the riddle of life,
And tried death,
And the riddle beyond death.

He thought this passionate America,
With its vast results of physical life,
Its beautiful and sublime portraitures,
Its far-sweeping prairies, rolling in grassy waves
Like the green billows of an inland sea—
Its blue-robed mountains
Piercing the bluer heavens with their peaks—
Its rivers, lakes, and forests—
A roomy, and grand-enough earth to inhabit,
Without thought of anything beyond it.

And yet he is related to all
That was, and is, and shall be!
That idea which was clothed in his flesh
Is fleshed in I know not how many
Infinite forms and varieties,
In every part of the earth,
In this day of my generation.
But the flesh is a little different,
And here and there the organism a nobler one,
And the idea bigger, broader, deeper,
Of a more divine quality and diapason.
He is included in us, as the lesser in the greater;
All our enactments are repetitions of his;
Enlarged and adorned;
And we pass through all his phases,
Some time or other, in our beginnings—
Through his, and an infinity of larger ones—
And we have the same inevitable endings.

A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE:

ITS POSSIBILITY, SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY, AND APPROPRIATE CHARACTERISTICS

The idea of the possibility and desirableness of a universal language, scientifically constituted; a common form of speech for all the nations of mankind; for the remedy of the confusion and the great evil of Babel, is not wholly new. The celebrated Leibnitz entertained it. It was, we believe, glanced at among the schemes of Lord Monboddo. Bishop Wilkins devoted years of labor to the accomplishment of the task, and thought he had accomplished it. He published the results of his labors in heavy volumes, which have remained, as useless lumber, on the shelves of the antiquarian, or of those who are curious in rare books. A young gentleman of this city, of a rare genius, by the name of Fairbank, who died by a tragical fate a few years since, labored assiduously to the same end. A society of learned men has recently been organized in Spain, with their headquarters at Barcelona, devoted to the same work. Numerous other attempts have probably been made. In all these attempts, projects, and labors, the design has never transcended the purpose of Invention. The effort has been simply to contrive a new form of speech, and to persuade mankind to accept it;—a task herculean and hopeless in its magnitude and impracticability; but looking still in the direction of the supply of one of the greatest needs of human improvement. The existence of no less than two or three thousand different languages and idioms on the surface of the planet, in this age of railroad and steamship communication, presents, obviously, one of the most serious obstacles to that unification of humanity which so many concurrent indications tend, on the other hand, to prognosticate.

Another and different outlook toward a unity of speech for the race comes up from a growing popular impression that all existing languages must be ultimately and somewhat rapidly smelted into one by the mere heat and attrition of our intense modern international intercourse. Each nationality is beginning to put forth its pretensions as the proper and probable matrix of the new agglomerate, or philological pudding-stone, which is vaguely expected to result. The English urge the commercial supremacy of their tongue; the French the colloquial and courtly character of theirs; the Germans the inherent energy and philosophical adaptation of the German; the Spanish the wide territorial distribution and the pompous euphony of that idiom; and so of the other nationalities.

Both invention, which is the genius of adaptation, and the blending influence of mere intercourse, may have their appropriate place as auxiliaries, in the reconstruction of human speech, in accordance with the exigencies of the new era which is dawning on the world; but there is another and far more basic and important element, which may, and perhaps we may say must, appear upon the stage, and enter into the solution. This is the element of positive Scientific Discovery in the lingual domain. It may be found that every elementary sound of the human voice is inherently laden by nature herself with a primitive significance; that the small aggregate of these meanings is precisely that handful of the Primitive Categories of all Thought and all Being which the Philosophers, from Aristotle up to Kant, have so industriously and painfully sought for. The germ of this idea was incipiently and crudely struggling in the mind of the late distinguished philologist, Dr. Charles Kreitser, formerly professor of languages in the University of Virginia, and author of numerous valuable articles in Appletons' 'Cyclopædia;' the most learned man, doubtless, that unfortunate Hungary has contributed to our American body of savans. This element of discovery may, in the end, take the lead, and immensely preponderate in importance over the other two factors already mentioned as participating in the solution of a question of a planetary language. The idea certainly has no intrinsic improbability, that the normal language of mankind should be matter of discovery as the normal music of the race has been already. There was an instinctual and spontaneous development of music in advance of the time when science acted reflectively upon the elements and reconstituted it in accordance with the musical laws so discovered. Why may we not, why ought we not even to expect, analogically, that the same thing will occur for speech?

Setting aside, however, for the present occasion, the profounder inquiry into the inherent significance of sounds, and into all that flows logically from that novel and recondite investigation, we propose at present to treat in a more superficial way the subject indicated in the title of this article—A Universal Language; its Possibility, Scientific Necessity, and Appropriate Characteristics.

The expansion of the scope of science is at this day such that the demand for discriminating technicalities exceeds absolutely the capacity of all existing language for condensed and appropriate combinations and derivations. Hence speech must soon fail to serve the new developments of thought, unless the process of word-building can be itself proportionately improved; unless, in other words, a new and scientifically constructed Language can be devised adequate to all the wants of science. It would seem that there should occur, in the range of possibilities, the existence of the Plan in Nature of a New and Universal Language, copious, flexible, and expressive beyond measure; competent to meet the highest demands of definition and classification; and containing within itself a natural, compact, infinitely varied, and inexhaustible terminology for each of the Sciences, as ordained by fixed laws preëxistent in the nature of things.

This language should not then be an arbitrary contrivance, but should be elaborated from the fundamental laws of speech, existing in the constitution of the universe and of man, and logically traced to this special application. This knowledge of the underlying laws of speech should determine the mode of the combination of Elementary Sounds into Syllables and Words, and of Words into Sentences naturally expressive of given conceptions or ideas. Such a language would rest on discovery, in that precise sense in which discovery differs from invention, and would have in itself infinite capacities and powers of expression, and again of suggesting thought; and might perhaps come to be recognized as the most stupendous discovery to which the human intellect is capable of attaining. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' The Word, or the Logos, is the underlying or hidden Wisdom of which speech is the external utterance or expression. Who can say how profoundly and intimately the underlying and hitherto undiscovered Laws of Speech may be consociated with the basic Principles of all truth embedded in the Wisdom-Nature of God himself? The old Massonites had a faith, derived from certain mystical utterances of the Greek Philosophers, that whosoever should discover the right name for anything, would have absolute power over that thing. The Wisdom of Plato and the deeper Wisdom of Christ meet and are married to each other in the conception of John when he makes the startling assertion that the Logos, the Logic, the Law, the Word, is synonymous with God himself.

The possibilities of the existence of such a language, divinely and providentially prepared in the constitution of things, and awaiting discovery, begins to be perceived, if the conception of the existence of an absolutely universal analogy be permitted fairly to take possession of the mind. Such an infinite scheme of analogy, rendering the same principles alike applicable in all spheres, must itself, in turn, rest upon a Divine Unity of Plan reigning throughout the Universe, the execution of which Plan is the act or the continuity of the acts of Creation. The Religious Intuition of the Race has persistently insisted upon the existence of this Unity, to the conception of which the scientific world is only now approximatingly and laboriously ascending.

If there be such Analogy in Nature furnishing an echo and an image in every department of Being of all that exists in every other department of Being, certainly that Analogy must be most distinct and clearly discoverable as between the Elements, or the lowest and simplest Constituents of Being in each Sphere. The lowest and simplest elements of Language are Oral Sounds, which in written Languages are represented by Letters, and constitute the Alphabets of those Languages. The Alphabets of Sound must be clearly distinguished from the mere Letter-Alphabets by which the Sounds are variously represented. The Sound-Alphabets (the Scales of Phonetic Elements) of any two Languages differ only in the fact that one of the Languages may include a few Sounds which are not heard in the other, or may omit a few which are.

The Mouth, the Larynx (a cartilaginous box at the top of the windpipe), and the Nose—the compound organ of speech—constitute an instrument, capable, like the accordeon, for instance, of a certain number of distinct touches and consequent vocal effects, which produce the sounds heard in all existing Languages. The total of the possible sounds so produced or capable of production may be called the Crude or Unwinnowed Alphabet of Nature, or the Natural Alphabet of Human Language generically or universally considered. Thus, for instance, the sound represented in English and the Southern European Languages generally, by the letter m, is made by the contact of the two lips, while at the same time the sounding breath so interrupted is projected upon the sounding board of the head through the nose, whence resounding, it is discharged outwardly, this process giving to the sound produced that peculiar effect called nasal or nose-sound; and precisely this sound can be produced by the voice in no other way. This sound is, nevertheless, heard in nearly all Languages, although there are a few imperfect savage dialects which are destitute of it. The production of this sound, as above described, will be obvious to the reader if he will pronounce the word my, and will attend to the position of the lips when he begins to utter the word. Let him attempt to say my, without closing the lips, and the impossibility of doing so will be apparent. The production of the sound is therefore mechanical and local; and the number of sounds to be produced by the organ fixed and limited, therefore, by Nature herself. The very limited number of possible sounds may be guessed by the fact that of sounds produced by completely closing the two lips, there are only three, namely, p, b, m, in all the Languages of the earth (as in p-ie, b-y, m-y).

It is the same with all the other vocal sounds. They are necessarily produced at certain fixed localities or Seats of Sound, in the mouth, and by a certain fixed modulation or mechanical use of the Organs of Speech. At least they are produced in and are confined to certain circumscribed regions of the mouth, and so differ in the method of their production as to be appropriately distributed into certain Natural Classes: as Vowels and Consonants; Labials (Lip Sounds); Linguo-dentals (Tongue-Teeth Sounds); Gutturals (Back-Mouth or Throat Sounds), etc., etc.

From the whole number of sounds which it is possible to produce—the whole Crude Natural Alphabet—one Language of our existing Languages selects a certain number less than the whole, and another Language doing the same, it happens that while they mainly coincide, they, so to speak, shingle over each other at random, and it follows: 1. That the Number of Sounds in different Languages is not uniform; 2. That of any two Languages compared, one will chance to have several sounds not heard in the other; and, 3. The erroneous impression is made upon the casual and superficial observer that in the aggregate of all Languages there must be an immense number of sounds; whereas, in fact, the total Alphabet of Vocal Sounds in nature, like the Gamut of Colors or Musical Tones, is quite limited, if we attend only to those which distinctly differ, or stand at appropriate and appreciable distances from each other.

Further to illustrate: Assume that there are, capable of being clearly discriminated by the human ear, say sixty-four or seventy-two distinct Elementary Sounds of the human voice, in all—as many, for example, as there are Chemical Elements; some existing Languages select and make use of twenty, some of twenty-four, some of thirty, and some of forty of these sounds, omitting the rest.

But—and here is a very important point and a real discovery in this investigation—it will be found, if closely attended to, that a certain selection of one half of this number, say thirty-two or thirty-six of these sounds, embraces the whole body of vocal elements usually occurring in all the forms of speech on the planet; the remaining half consisting of rare, exceptional, and, we may nearly say, useless sounds. This statement will again be better understood by analogy with what regards the Elements of Chemistry. Just about one half of the known elements of matter occur with frequency, and enter into useful and ordinary combinations to produce the great mass of known substances. The remaining half are unfrequent, obscure, and relatively unimportant; some of them never having been seen even by many of our most eminent chemists. Even should a few new elements be discovered, it cannot be anticipated that any one of them should prove to be of leading importance, like oxygen, carbon, or sulphur.

On the other hand, should some future great chemical discovery realize the dream of the alchemists, and enable us to transmute iron into gold, and indeed every chemical Element into every other chemical Element (convertible identity), still the sixty-four (nearly) Chemical Elements now known would remain the real Elements of Organic and Inorganic Compounds, in a sense just as important as that in which they are now so regarded. The now known Elements would still continue to constitute The Crude Natural Alphabet of Matter, and be correspondential with The Crude Natural Alphabet of Sounds in Language. The transmutability of one element into another indefinitely, would not, in any but a certain absolute or transcendental sense, cause the Elements to be regarded as one, or as any less number than now. It would be, on the contrary, a fact precisely corresponding with the actual and well-known transmutability of speech-sounds into each other as occurs in the phenomena of Etymology and Comparative Philology. This is so extensive, as now understood by Comparative Philologists, that it would be hardly difficult to prove that every sound is capable of being transmuted into every other sound, either directly or through intermediates; and yet we do not in the least tend to cease to regard the several sounds as they stand as the real Elements of Speech.

It is this transmutability of Correspondential Elements in another sphere of Being, which bases the presumption, or gives to it at least countenance from a new quarter, that the metals and other chemical Elements may be actually convertible substances by means of processes not yet suspected or sufficiently understood. The more careful study of the Analogy with the Elements of other spheres, and perhaps specifically with the Elements of Language, under the presiding influence of larger scientific generalizations and views than those which now prevail in the scientific world, may be, and, it would even seem, ought to be the means of revealing the law of Elementary Transmutations in the Chemical Domain. The expectation of a future discovery of the resolution of the existing Elements of Matter, and their convertibility even, is reviving in the chemical field, and even so distinguished a chemist and thinker as Professor Draper does not hesitate to sustain its probability by the weight of his authority and belief. The process by which the transmutation of Elements is actually effected in Language, is by Slow and Continued Attrition. These very words suggest a process but little resorted to in chemical experiment, but which probably intervenes in the Laboratory of Nature, when she makes the diamond out of a substance, simple carbon, the most familiarly known to chemistry, but out of which the human chemist is entirely unable by any process known to him to produce that precious gem.

Whether this particular hint is of any value or not, one thing is certain, that it is in the direction of Universal and Comparative Science—the analogical echo of the parts of one Domain of Being with the parts of another Domain and of all other Domains of Being; of the phenomena of one Science with the phenomena of other Sciences; and especially as among the Elements of each—that we must look for the next grand advances in Scientific Discovery. The world urgently requires the existence of a new class of scientific students who shall concern themselves precisely with these questions of the relations and the indications of unity between the different Sciences; not to displace, but to transcend and to coördinate the labors of that noble Army of Scientific Specialists, with which Humanity is now so extensively and so happily provided.

The Select Lingual Alphabet of Nature, as distinguished from the Crude Natural Alphabet above described, is then the expurgated scale of sounds, say thirty-two; the sounds of usual occurrence in polished languages; one half of the whole number; the residuum after rejecting an equal number of obscure, unimportant, or barbarous sounds, of possible production and of real occurrence in some of the cruder Languages, and as crude elements even in the more refined Languages now extant. The two sounds of th in English, as in thigh and thy (the theta of the Greek), and the two shades of the ch-sound in German, as in nach and ich, are instances of crude sounds in refined Languages, for which other Languages, more fastidious for Euphony, as French and Italian for example, naturally substitute t, d, and k (c). The obscure and crude sounds would always retain, however (in respect to the idea of a Universal Alphabet), a subordinate place and value, and should be gathered and represented in a Supplementary Alphabet for special and particular uses.

It has been the mistake of Phoneticians and Philologians, heretofore, to recognize no difference in the relative importance of sounds. They have sought, through every barbarous dialect, as well as every refined tongue, and gathered by the drag-net of observation, every barbarous and obscure as well as every polite sound which by any accident ever enters into the constitution of speech. The clucks of Hottentot Tribes and the whistle heard in some of the North American Languages have been reckoned in, upon easy terms, with the more serviceable and euphonious members of the Phonetic family, and mere trivial shades of sounds were put upon the same footing as the pivotal sounds themselves. This is as if certain obdurate compounds were introduced in the first instance among Chemical Elements—which subsequent analysis may even prove to be the case in respect to some substances that we now recognize as Elements—and then, by assigning to the least important of Elements the same rank, and giving to them the same attention as to the most important, the number were augmented beyond the practical or working body of Elements, and our treatises upon Chemistry encumbered by a mass of useless matter. Or again, it is as if among the Elements of Music were included all conceivable sounds, as the squeal, the shriek, the sob, etc.; and as if, in addition to this, the least intervals, the quarter tones for instance, were ranked as the musical equals of the whole tones.

If it should prove a matter of fact, as capable of exact scientific demonstration as any other, that the Consonant and Vowel Elements of Oral Language are, in a radical and important sense, repetitory of, or correspondential with, Musical Tones or the Elements of Music, as well as with Chemical Elements, and these again with the Elements of Numerical Calculation, of Form, or the Science of Morphology, and, in fine, with the Prime Metaphysical Elements of Being, or the first Categories of Thought, perhaps we may by such speculations catch a glimpse of the possibilities of a great lingual discovery, having the attributes here indicated. Why should not the Elements of Speech have been brought by Nature herself into some sort of parallelism with the Elements of Thought which it is the special province of Speech to represent? Why, again, should not the Prime Elements of every new domain of Being be merely a Repetition in new form of the Prime Elements of the Universe, as a whole, and of those especially of Language, its representative domain?—Language being the literal word, as Universal Law is the Logos or the Word par excellence, and Divine. In that event, every speech-element would be of necessity inherently charged with the precise kind and degree of meaning specifically relating it, first to one of the Prime Elements of Being, metaphysically considered, and then, by an echo of resemblance, to one of the Prime Elements of every subordinate domain of Being throughout the Universe. The Combinations of the Letter-Sounds would then constitute words exactly, simply, and naturally expressive of any combination of the Elements of Being, either, first, in the Universal domain, or, secondly, in any subordinate domain, physical or psychical. In this way a grand and wonderful system of technicals would be wrought out for all the sciences—provided by Nature herself, and discovered, only, by man. It is at least certain that if a grand Science of Analogy is ever to be discovered, capable of Unifying all our knowledges, an anticipation vaguely entertained by our most advanced scientific minds, it must be sought for primarily among the simplest elements of every domain of science, or, what is the same thing, every domain of Thought and Being. It is alike certain that heretofore the first step even has never been rightly taken among the men of science to investigate in that direction. The failure of all those who have entertained the idea of a Universal Analogy as a basis of Scientific Unity, has resulted from the fact that, drawn rapidly along by the beauty of their conceptions, they have attempted to rush forward into the details of their subject, and have lost themselves in the infinity of these, without the wisdom and patience to establish a basis for their immense fabric in the exact discovery and knowledge of Elements. They have hastened forward to the limbs and twigs and leaves and flowers and fruitage, without having securely planted the roots of their scientific tree in the solid earth. Such was the case with Oken, the great German Physio-Philosopher and Transcendental Anatomist, the pupil of Hegel, who exerted a profound influence over the scientific mind of Germany for thirty years, but has now sunk into disrepute for want of just that elementary and demonstrative discovery of first Elements, and the rigorous adhesion to such perceptions of that kind as were partially entertained by him and his school of powerful thinkers and scientists.

To repeat the leading idea above, which is so immensely pregnant with importance, and, perhaps we may add, so essentially new: The combinations of Speech-Elements—in a perfect and normal Language for the Human Race, which we are here assuming that Nature should have provided, and which may be only awaiting discovery—when they should be rightly or scientifically arranged into words and sentences, would be exactly concurrent and parallel with the combinations of the Prime Elements of Thought and Being in the Real Universe; so that each word, so formed, would become exactly charged with the kind and amount of meaning contained in the thing named or the conception intended. An idea will thus be obtained by the reader, somewhat vague, no doubt, at first, but which would become perfectly distinct, as the subject should be gradually unfolded, of the way in which a universal language naturally expressive of Thoughts and Feelings, and capable of unlimited expansion, might perhaps be evolved from a profound understanding of the Analogies of the Universe. It is important, however, in order that this theory, now when it is first presented, should not unnecessarily prejudice cautious and conservative minds, and seem to them wholly Utopian, to guard it by the additional statement that, while such a language might be appropriately denominated Universal, there is a sense in which it would still not be so; or, in other words, that it could only become Universal by causing to coalesce with its own scientifically organized structure, the best material already wrought out, and existing as natural growth in the dead and living languages now extant; by absorbing them, so to speak, in itself. It would have no pretension, therefore, directly to supersede any of the existing languages, nor even ultimately to dispense with the great mass of the material found in any of them.

It is a common prejudice among the learned that Language is a growth, and cannot in any sense be a structure; in other words, that it is purely the subject of the instinctive or unthoughted development of man, and not capable of being derived from reflection, or the deliberate application of the scheming faculty of the intellect. A little reflection will show that this opinion is only a half truth. It is certain that language has received its primitive form and first development by the instinctive method. It is equally true, however, that even as respects our existing languages, they have been overlaid by a subsequent formation, originating with the development of the Sciences, due wholly to reflection on the scheming faculty of man, and already equal in extension to the primitive growth. The Nomenclature of each of the Sciences has been devised by the reflective genius of individuals, and arbitrarily imposed, so to speak, upon the Spoken and Written Languages of the World, as they previously existed. From the cabinets and books of the learned, they gradually pass into the speech of the laity, and become incorporated with the primitive growth. If, instead of the Carbonate of Soda, the Protoxide of Nitrogen, and other Chemical Technicalities arbitrarily formed in modern times from the ancient Greek Language, terms which the ancient Greeks themselves never heard nor conceived of, we had words derived from similar combinations of Anglo-Saxon or German Roots; if, for instance, for Protoxide of Nitrogen, we had the First-sour-stuffness, or the First-sharp-thingness of Salt-petreness, and so throughout the immense vocabulary of chemistry, what an essentially different aspect would the whole English Language now wear! Had Lavoisier, therefore, chosen the Anglo-Saxon or the German as the basis of the chemical nomenclature now in use, we can readily perceive how the intellectual device of a single savant, would, ere this time, have sent a broad current of new development through the heart of all the advanced Languages of the earth; of a different kind wholly, but no more extensive, no more novel, and truly foreign to the primitive instinctual growth of those Languages, no more purely the result of intellectual contrivance, than the current of development to which he actually did give origin.

Lavoisier chose the dead Greek as a fountain from which to draw the elements of his new verbal compounds, assigning to those elements arbitrarily new volumes of meaning, and constructing from them, with no other governing principle than his own judgment of what seemed best, a totally new Language, as it were, adequate to the wants of the new Science. Still, despite these imperfections in the method, the demand, with the growth of the new ideas, for a new expansion of the powers of Language, in a given direction, made the contrivance of the great chemist a successful interpolation upon the speech-usages of the world. It is certainly not therefore inconceivable—because of any governing necessity that Language should be a purely natural growth—that other and greater modifications of the speech of mankind may occur; when—not an arbitrary contrivance upon an imperfect basis and of a limited application is in question, but—when a real discovery, the revelation of the true scientific bases of Language, and limitless applications in all directions, should be concerned.

On the other hand, the extent of the practical applications of strictly scientific principles to the Structure of Language is subject to limitation. Even mathematics, theoretically the most unlimited of the existing Sciences, is practically limited very soon by the complexity of the questions involved in the higher degrees of equations. In the same manner, while it may be possible to construct a Scientific Language adequate to all the wants of Language, in which exactness is involved; that is to say, capable of classifying and naming every object and idea in the Universe which is itself capable of exact classification and definition, still there remains an immense sphere, an equal half, it may be said, of the Universe of objects and conceptions, which have not that susceptibility; which are, in other words, so complex, so idiosyncratic, or so vague in their nature, that the best guide for the formation of an appropriate word for their expression is not Intellect or Reflection, but that very Instinct which has presided over the formation of such Languages as we now have. We may accurately define a triangle or a cube, and might readily bring them within the range of a Universal Language scientifically constructed; but who would venture to attempt by any verbal contrivance to denote the exact elements of thought and feeling which enter into the meaning of the verbs to screech or to twinge?

There is, therefore, ample scope and a peremptory demand for both methods of lingual development. The New Scientific Language herein suggested would be universal within the limit within which Science itself is universal. But there is another sphere within which Science, born of the Intellect, has only a subordinate sway, and in which instinct, or that faculty which, in the higher aspect of it, we denominate Intuition, is supreme. This faculty has operated as instinct in the first stage of the growth of Language, the Natural or Instinctual; it should now give place to the Intellect, in the second stage, the Scientific; after which it should regain its ascendency as Intuition, in the final finish and perfectionment of the Integral Speech of Mankind, the Artistic.

Such a Language would be, to all other Languages, precisely what a unitary Science would be to all the special Sciences; and we have seen how it might happen that the same discovery should furnish both the Language and the Science. Without rudely displacing any existing Language, it would, besides filling its own central sphere of uses, furnish a rallying point of unity between them all. It would ally them to itself, not by the destruction of their several individualities, but by developing the genius of each to the utmost. It would enrich them all, by serving as the common interpreter between them, until each would attain something of the powers of all, or at least the full capacity for availing itself of the aid of all others, and chiefly of the central tongue, in all those respects in which in consequence of its own special character it should remain individually defective. The new Scientific and Central Language might thus plant itself in the midst of the Languages; gradually assimilate them to itself; drawing at the same time an augmentation of its own materials from them, until they would become mere idioms of it, and finally, perhaps, in a more remote future, disappear altogether as distinct forms of speech, and be blended into harmony in the bosom of the central tongue.

The resources of Language for the formation of new words, by the possible euphonic combination of elementary sounds, is as nearly infinite as any particular series of combinations usually called infinite; all such series having their limitations, as in the case of the different orders of the Infinite in the calculus which are limited by the fact that there are different orders. Yet, notwithstanding that this inexhaustible fountain of Phonetic wealth exists directly at hand, none of these resources have ever been utilized by any scientific arrangement and advice. Only so many verbal forms as happen to have occurred in any given language, developed by the chance method, in the Greek, for instance, are chosen as a basis, and employed as elements for the new verbal formatives now coming into use with such astonishing rapidity in all the sciences. For instance, let us take the consonant combination kr (or cr), and add the following series of vowels: i (pronounced ee), e (pronounced a), a (pronounced ah), o (pronounced aw), u (pronounced uh), o (pronounced o), and u (pronounced oo); and we construct the following series of euphonic triliteral roots:

• Kri (Kree)
• Kre (Kra or Kray)
• Kra (Krah)
• Kro (Kraw)
• Kru (Kruh)
• Kro (Kro)
• Kru (Kroo).

Let us now add the termination o, and we have the following list of formatives:

• Kri-o (Kreè-o)
• Kre-o (Kra-o)
• Kra-o (Krah-o)
• Kro-o (Kraw-o)
• Kru-o (Kruh-o)
• Kro-o (Kro-o)
• Kru-o (Kroo-o).

Of these verbal forms only two occur in any of the well-known Southwestern Languages of Europe, namely, Creo, I CREATE, of the Latin, Italian, etc., and Crio, I REAR, of the Spanish. The other forms are entirely unused. Of any other simple series of Euphonic combinations, such as Phonetic art can readily construct, there is the same wasteful neglect, and, in consequence of this total failure of the scientific world to extract these treasures of Phonic wealth lying directly beneath their feet, they are driven to such desperate devices as that of naming the two best-known and most familiar order of fishes, those usually found on our breakfast tables, Acanthopterygii Abdominales, and Malacopterygii Subbrachiati; and the common and beautiful bird called bobolink is Dolichonyx Orixyvora. For the same reason—the entire absence of any economical and systematized use of our phonetic materials by the scientific world—the writer found himself, recently, in attempting certain generalizations of the domain of science, stranded almost at the commencement, upon such verbal shoals as Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus; and the subsequent steps in the mere naming of discriminations simple enough in themselves, became wholly impossible. The urgent necessity existing, therefore, for the radical intervention of Science in the discovery of true principles applicable to the construction of its own tools and instruments, can hardly be denied or questioned.

The immense condensation of meaning, and the consequent compactness and copiousness of which a Language based on a meaning inherently contained by analogy in the simplest elements of sound would be susceptible, would give to such a Language advantages as the instrument of thought and communication, which are but very partially illustrated in the superiority of printing by movable types over manuscript, for the rapid multiplication of books.

In the compound words of existing Languages each root-word of the combination has a distinct meaning, and the joint meaning of the parts so united is the description or definition of the new idea; thus in German, Finger is FINGER, and Hut is HAT, and Finger-hut (FINGER-HAT) is a thimble; Hand is HAND, Schue is SHOE, and Hand-schue is a glove, etc. So in English, Wheel-barrow, Thunder-storm, etc. The admirable expressiveness of such terms, and the great superiority in this respect of Languages like the Sanscrit, Greek, German, etc., in which such self-defining combinations are readily formed, over Spanish, Italian, French, and other derivative languages, the genius of which resists combination, is immediately perceived and acknowledged. But if we analyze any one of these compound words, Finger-hut, for instance, we shall perceive that while each of the so-called elements of combination, Finger and Hut, has a distinct meaning, which enters into the more specific meaning of the compound, yet they are not, in any true sense, elements, or, in other words, that they are not the ultimate elements of the compound words. Finger is itself constituted, in the first instance, of two syllables, Fing and er, which, in accordance with the same principle upon which the compound word Finger-hut is organized, should describe the thing signified, as would be the case if Fing meant HAND, and er meant CONTINUATION. Finger would then mean Hand-continuation, and Finger-hut (thimble) would then be a Hand-continuation-hat. But, again, Fing consists of three elementary sounds, f-i-ng, er of two, e-r, and hut of three, h-u-t. Suppose now that the primary sound f had been scientifically discovered to be correspondential throughout all the realms of Nature and of Thought with Superiority, High-position, or Upperness; i with centrality, or main body, and ng with member or branch; the syllable Fing would then signify Upper-body-branch, a very proper description of the arm. Suppose that e signified, in the same way, flat, palm-like ideas and things generally and that r alone signified continuation; then er would signify Palm-continuation, and Finger would signify an Upper-bodybranch-palm-continuation, or, in other words, a Palm-continuation of an upper-body-branch, and would so be completely descriptive of, at the same time that it would denote, a Finger. Suppose, again, that h signified inherently rotundity or roundness; u, closeness; and t, roof or covering; then hut would signify round-closed-cover, a proper description of a hat; and Finger-hut would then mean An-upper-body-branch-palm-continuation-round-closed-cover, or the round-closed-cover of a palm-continuation of a superior limb or branch of the body. It will be at once perceived how, with such resources of signification at command, compounds like Acanthopterygii to signify thornfins, Malacopterygii Subbrachiati, to signify Under-arm soft fins, or Anthropomorphus Inorganismoidismus, to signify things in unorganized form, having a resemblance to man, would soon come to be regarded as the lingual monsters which they really are.

The difference between commencing the composition of words by the real elements of speech, represented by single letters, each charged with its own appropriate meaning, and conveying that meaning into every compound into which it should enter, from commencing the composition by assuming long words already formed in some existing language, as Anthropos (Greek word for man), Acanthos (Greek word for spine), Keron (Greek word for fin or wing), etc., as the first element of the new compounds, is infinite in its results upon the facility, copiousness, and expressiveness of the terminology evolved. It is like the difference of man working by the aid of the unlimited resources of tools and machinery and the knowledge of chemistry, on the one hand, and man working with his unaided bare hands, and in ignorance of the nature of the substances he employs, on the other hand. The scientific world has not hitherto known how to construct the lingual tools and instruments which are indispensable to its own rapidly augmenting and complicated operations; to analyze and apply the lingual materials at its command; and to simplify and unify the nomenclatures of all the sciences, in order to quicken a thousandfold the operation of all the mental faculties, in the perception and exact vocal indication of all the infinitely numerous close discriminations and broad generalizing analogies with which nature abounds.

It is hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word Finger-hut, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each of the special Sciences.

Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and absolutely—in a sense, more truly and absolutely—than our existing instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives, speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth shall be of one speech?

A SUMMER'S NIGHT.

[Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski, by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for The Continental by Martha Walker Cook.]

'O'er this sad world Death folds his gloomy pall,
Bright buds hatch worms, flowers die, and woe shrouds all.'
Malizewski.

'Oh, look on me, my fellow countrymen,
From the same Fatherland! On me, so young,
Passing o'er the last road, gazing for the last time
On Helios—to see him rise no more for ever!
In his cold cradle Death rolls all asleep; Me living he conducts to his black shores;
Me wretched! unbetrothed! upon whose ears
No bridal chant has ever hymned its joys,
Stern Acheron alone calls to his side,
And Death must be my icy Bridegroom now!'
Sophocles: Antigone.

CHAPTER I.

I behold her as they lead her forth, with myrtle wreath upon her brow, and floating drapery of snow. She moves slowly, as if in fear, and the church rises like a vast cemetery before her eyes. Charmed with her modest loveliness, men smile on her as she glides forward, while children, changed into little angels, strew fresh flowers before her. The bishop and attendant priests look bright in gay dalmatics; and throngs of people crowd round, praising, envying, and wishing bliss. She alone is silent, with long lashes shading her downcast eyes, as she leans on the arms of her maidens.

Weariness is in every movement of her slight form, her nerves seem unstrung, and the rays of soul gleam vague and troubled through the expanded pupils of her blue eyes; it were indeed hard to divine whether plaint or prayer would breathe through the half-open lips. As she passes on before the shrines and chapels she lifts her hand, as if intending to make the sign of the cross, but she seems without energy to complete the symbols, and they fall broken and half formed in the air. Inclining her head before the Mother of God, she bends as if about to kneel, but, her strength evidently failing her, she moves tremblingly on toward the sanctuary, and the Great Altar in its gloomy depths looms before her like a sepulchre.

There, encircled by relations and friends, with pride and pleasure beaming from his aged eyes, her father awaits her; and well may he be proud, for never had God given to declining years a lovelier child. She shines upon the sunset of his life with the growing lustre of the evening star, and never has its light beamed dim upon him until this very hour. He will not, however, think of this momentary eclipse now, for this same hour will see the fulfilment of his brightest dreams. In his joy and pride he exclaims to the friends around him: 'Look on my child; how young, pure, and innocent she is—trembling in the ignorance of her approaching happiness!' Then he gazes wistfully, far as his eye can reach, down the long aisles of the church, to ascertain if the bridegroom yet appears, and, seeing him not, his gray eyebrows fall, and settle into a frown.

But peace soon again smoothes his broad forehead. Alas! the illusions of the old stand round their petrifying souls like statues of granite; no earthly power avails to strike them down, and death alone can break them. The young see their dreams floating in the air, while shifting rainbows play above them as they rise and melt upon the view. But the hopes of the old grow hard and stony as they near the grave; their desires assume the form of realities. The harsh rock of bygone experience stands between them and the truths of the present. Seating themselves immovably upon it, the surging life-stream hurtles on far below, bearing them not forward on its hurrying flow. Withered garlands and the ashes of once fiery hearts drift on; shattered wrecks, with torn sails and broken masts, driven and tossed by eternal whirlwinds, appear and vanish in the river's rush; but the old remain motionless above. The hot rain of stars forever falling there dies out with dull moan, while the glad waves and white foam laugh as the ruined wrecks toss helplessly in the strong winds; but the aged heed it not: they have grown into one with the rock of the past, they build air castles over the roaring depths, they look upon the waves, as they surge into each other, as stable altars of peace and happiness. They command their sons and daughters to vow faith in the light of the past, but ere the oath is fully spoken, the altar is under other skies, encircled by other horizons!

Surrounded by friends in gay attire, the bridegroom, full of life and vigor, rushes into the church. He wears a national dress, but his nation is not that of the old man. The crowd disperse from right to left as he passes on, greeting him with lowly bows: scarcely deigning to return the courtesy, he clatters up the aisle with rapid stride, and stands by the side of the kneeling bride. He places his lips to the ear of the old man, and whispers to him; they converse in low tones, the old man with an air of regal authority, the young one gesturing rapidly with his hands.

The bishops now slowly approach, the tapers are lighted upon the altar, a solemn silence falls upon the holy temple, two hands, two souls are to be united forever! A shiver of awe thrills through the assembly.

The beams of the setting sun pour in through the stained panes of the windows their lines of crimson light, as if streams of blood were flowing through the church. Deepening in the approaching twilight, they fall in their dying splendor on the brow of a man who stands alone in one of the side chapels. The figure of a dead hero extended upon a monument lies near him, as, immovable as the statue itself, he stands with his gaze riveted upon the altar whence the bishop addresses the bride. The crimson light falling full upon him betrays the secrets of his soul, his noble brow tells of fierce struggle within, but neither prayer, sigh, nor groan escapes him. His lips are closely pressed together, while suppressed anguish writhes them into a stern smile—but the streams of ruby light which had shone on his face for the moment, fade in the twilight, and he is lost in the gloom of the deepening shadows.

But when the vows were all spoken, the ceremonies over, when the bridegroom raised up the bride, and she fell into the arms of her father, when he bore her onward to the gates of the church, with thousands of tapers following after, when the crowd dispersed, and the sounds of the footsteps were dying away in the distance, and the cathedral grew still as the grave, holding only the dead and the few half-living monks moving darkly in its depths—the man on whom had shone the crimson light leaves the chapel, comes up the aisle, strikes his breast, and falls forward on the steps of the altar, rises suddenly, and again falls, then seats himself, while the lights from behind the great crucifix of silver shine down solemnly upon him. His face is turned away from the holy things of the sanctuary; his eyes gaze afar, past the gates through which the bride had vanished. He sees the blue night-sky, and a single star sparkling upon it, and as he looks upon the star, he takes a sword from under his cloak, draws the steel from the scabbard, and, still gazing upon the star, sharpens it on his whetstone. Thus, with widely opened eye, yet seeing, hearing nothing, the somnambulist, wrapped in deep, magnetic sleep, strides on in the moonlight, possessed by a power of which he is not conscious, which may stain his hands with blood, or hold him back from the verge of an abyss. Passion drinks its glow from the rays of the sun; it may lead us safely, or drive us far astray!

A monk approaches the man kneeling before the high altar, and says:

'Brother, whosoever thou mayst be, go to rest, and do not disturb the peace of the Lord.'

The man answers nothing. Another draws near him, saying:

'Away from the church; be not guilty of sacrilege!'

The man makes no reply. A third monk stands beside him and says:

'I excommunicate thee, and the steel which thou darest to draw at the very foot of the cross.'

The culprit then rises, and replies:

'I waited for these words, that the stroke might be certain, and the blow mortal.'

He leaves the church slowly—slowly, as if counting his own footfalls, knowing them to be his last on earth!

Meanwhile the night falls so softly, the skies hang so transparently above, the air is so tranquil, that the soul trembles with delight, and the heart unconsciously forebodes happiness. The stars peer up above the mountains, like the eyes of angels flashing through the blue spaces of the heavens. Swathed in her bands of darkness, and breathing up to them the perfume of her flowers and the sighs of her lovers, the earth seems grateful to them for their golden glances. A fitting night, surely, for a bridal so illustrious as the one we have just seen; a long spring will bloom from it upon the aged father. What more could he ask for his children? His new son in high favor with the emperor, lord of lands and serfs; his daughter, good and beautiful as an angel, goes not portionless into the house of her husband, but is the sole heiress of immense estates. What maiden would not envy her; what youth not wish to take his place? And the thoughts of the old man run pleasantly on: he thinks how happily his days will flow, blessed with the smiles of his daughter, and surrounded by the splendor of his son. He already sees the little grandchildren springing up before him; flowers blooming along the pathway leading to his grave.

A splendid festival is to take place in his castle; few princes would be able to give such an entertainment. The grounds are illumined as if it were day, barrels of pitch are everywhere burning, torches are blazing high upon his walls, windows and doors are thrown open, harps sound and trumpets thunder, mazourkas swell upon the ear, and the gay groups twine, twist, reel, half mad with joyous excitement. The old man strays through the lighted halls, and converses with his guests. Tears tremble in his eyes. Ah, many tears had gathered there in the troubled days of his life, through its hours of sweat and blood, but they are all passing now into these drops of gratitude to God who has brought him to this happy time in which past sorrows are all to be forgotten. Moving out upon his wide porticos, he pours coins from dishes of silver to the people below. Returning, he places clusters of diamonds on the young bosoms of the bridesmaids. Servants follow his footsteps, bending under the wealth they bear, handing to him glittering swords and golden chains, ostrich plumes, and Turkish scymitars, which, in memory of the day, he distributes among his guests. Sometimes he stops to take a chalice from the hands of a page, and wets his lips with Tokay, greeting his guests as he moves courteously on, wishing to warm all with the sunshine of his own happiness.

He enters now the central dome of the castle, lined with exotic trees and perfumed plants; the vaulted roof is corniced with wrought marble, emblazoned with escutcheons of his ancestors, unsullied, glorious, holy! Stopping at the entrance, he looks for his child: she is not among the dancers, nor in the throngs of the spectators. The bridegroom is indeed there, amusing himself with the various beauties present; and, for the second time in this happy day, the forehead of the old man lowers in grief or anger. He makes his way through the crowd, passes on through the orange trees, in the niches between which stand the now deserted seats rich in broidered tapestry. He lingers among them seeking his child, when he suddenly stops as if stricken with fierce pain. He has found her now; she is sitting quite alone, gazing sadly on a bunch of roses lying on her knee: dreamily she picks off the perfumed leaves, until the bare stems and thorns alone remain in her fragile hands. The old man silently approaches her. Suppressing his emotion, he says, with gentle voice:

'How happy thy poor mother would have been to-day, my daughter! Ah, why was it not the will of God she should have blessed this bridal hour!'

She raises her head, crushing the remains of the roses in her trembling hands, and in her confusion tries to fasten them on the hem of her dress: the sharp little stems plant themselves there, but stain its snow with the blood they had torn from the unconscious fingers.

'Why weepest thou, my child? It cannot surely be the memory of thy mother which so moves thee: thou hast never seen her—she went to the fathers in the very hour in which thou camest to me. Look, daughter, thou woundest thyself!'

He takes her hand in his, and softly draws from it the sharp thorns.

'O father, it is not that which pains me! Forgive me—it is that—only that, my father.'

She stands silently before him—great tears were falling slowly down her cheeks. He leans heavily upon her arm:

'Thou must support me now, child, for I grow old and frail, my knees tremble under me; be thou my stay!'

He walks on thoughtfully with her, trying to speak, but saying nothing, while around them float the perfumes of the flowers, and triumphal music swells upon the air.

As they move on, the great clock of the castle strikes the hour. It is fastened to the moulding high on the wall; over it sits an ancient monarch in bronze, a ruler of many kingdoms, and at each stroke the statue of a palatine sallies forth, bows to the king of bronze, and again disappears within the opening wall—twelve strokes toll as they pass, and twelve palatines appear, make obeisance, and vanish. Hark! from the distant chambers sound the choir of female voices; vague and dreamy the notes begin, but at each return they grow clearer and more defined. They are gliding on from hall to hall, ever drawing nearer and ever calling more loudly upon the bride. The old man trembles; the pale girl falls into his arms. But soon recovering, she flies on from passage to passage, from room to room, from gallery to gallery, from vault to vault, everywhere pursued by the choir of bridesmaids, dragging the old man with her, not able to utter a single word—while around them breathe the perfumes of the flowers, and triumphal music swells upon the air.

At last they stop in the chapel of the castle, where the ancestors rest in their coffins of stone. A few tapers burn around, and black draperies broidered with silver flow closely round the tombs. She, the youngest and last of the proud House, falls upon the grave of her mother, shudders, but speaks not. The old man says to the trembling girl:

'Daughter, God did not vouchsafe to give me a male descendant to prolong the power of our race; He blessed me only with a maiden; but thy husband has sworn to take thy name, and thy children will bear the name of our fathers. Honor, then, the favor with which God has crowned thee. No lady in the land is thy equal, heiress as thou art of glory, treasures, and estates—it is thy duty to be obedient and faithful to thy husband until death.'

He speaks to her in soft, low tones; slowly, as if he sought with each word to touch the heart of the silent child. She answers not, but lower and lower droops the fair young head, until her pale face is buried in her white hands, and the bridal wreath and veil fall from her brow upon the grave of her mother. A low groan bursts from the heart of the old man as he cries:

'Daughter, dost thou hear? they approach to bear thee from the breast on which thou hast rested from thy very birth; to take thee from the arms of the old man who has so loved thee! Look up, look into my face; thou art another's now—take leave of me—say, 'Father, I am happy!''