The

Not of those affairs which are domestic in a broad, national sense; not of any of our home institutions, 'peculiar' or otherwise; not of politics in any shape, nor of railroads and canals, nor of interstate relations, reconstructions, amnesty; not even of the omnivorous question, The War, do I propose to treat under the head of 'Our Domestic Affairs;' but of a subject which, though scarcely ever discussed except flippantly, and with unworthy levity, in that broad arena of public journalism in which almost every other conceivable topic is discussed, is yet second to none, if not absolutely first of all in its bearings upon our domestic happiness. I refer to the question of domestic service in our households.

The only plausible explanation of the singular fact that this important subject is not more frequently discussed in public is, undoubtedly, to be found in its very magnitude. Men and women whose 'mission' it is to enlighten and instruct the people, abound in every walk of morals. Religion, science, ethics, and every department of social economy but this, have their 'reformers.' Before the great problem, How shall the evils which attend our domestic service be removed? the stoutest-hearted reformer stands appalled. These evils are so multiform and all-pervading, they strike their roots so strongly, and ramify so extensively, that they defy the attempt to eradicate them; and they are thus left to flourish and increase. We have plenty of groans over these evils, but scarcely ever a thoughtful consideration of their cause, or an attempt worth noting to remove or mitigate them.

This is surely cowardly and wrong. This great question, which is really so engrossing that it is more talked of in the family circle than any other—this profound and intricate problem, upon the solution of which the comfort, happiness, and thrift of every household in the land depend more than upon almost any other—surely demands the most careful study, and the deepest solicitude of the reformer and philanthropist. The subject just now is receiving considerable attention in England, and the journals and periodicals of that country have recently teemed with articles setting forth the miseries with which English households are afflicted, owing to the want of good servants. But, unfortunately, from none of these has the writer been able to extract much assistance in preparing an answer to the only practical question: How are the evils of domestic service to be remedied? I quote, however, an extract from a recent article in The Victoria Magazine, in order to show how far the complaints made in England of the shortcomings of servants run parallel with those of our own housekeepers. It is to be noted that the writer confessedly holds a brief for the servants. If the facts are fairly stated, the relation between a servant in an English family and her employer differs widely from the like relation with us;

'The prizes in domestic service are few, the blanks many. Ladies think only of the prizes. Needlewomen and factory girls, when they turn their attention to domestic service, see the hardworked, underfed scrub lacking the one condition which goes far to alleviate the hardest lot, that of personal liberty. People who have never known what it is to be subject to the caprices of a petty tyrant, scarcely appreciate this alleviation at its true value. They expatiate upon the light labors, the abundance, the freedom from anxiety which characterize the lot of servants in good places, with an unction worthy of Southern slaveholders. What more any woman can want they cannot understand. They think it nothing that a servant has not, from week to week, and month to month, a moment that she can call her own, a single hour of the day or night, of which she can say, 'This is mine, and no one has a right to prescribe what I shall do with it'—that, in most cases, she has no recognized right to invite any one to come and see her, and therefore can have no full and satisfying sense of home—that many mistresses go so far as to claim the regulation of her dress—that even in mature age and by the kindest employers she is treated more as a child to be taken care of than as a responsible, grown-up woman, able to think and judge for herself. These are substantial drawbacks to the lot of the pampered menial.... These complaints of the readiness of servants to leave their places are based on the assumption that they are under obligations to their employers. In many cases, no doubt, they are, though probably least so where gratitude is most expected. But, at any rate, employers are also under obligations to them. When one thinks of all servants do for us, and how little, comparatively, we do for them, it appears that the demand for gratitude might come more appropriately from the other side. It is an old saying that we value in others the virtues which are convenient to ourselves, and this is curiously illustrated in the popular ideal of a good servant. In the master's estimate besides the indispensable physical qualification of vigorous health—diligence, punctuality, cleverness, readiness to oblige, and rigid honesty, of a certain sort, are essentials.'

We would look long through our laundries and kitchens for the 'hardworked, underfed scrub' of the above extract; and the 'servant who has not from week to week, and month to month, a moment that she can call her own, a single hour of the day or night, of which she can say, This is mine,' etc., does not belong to so numerous a class that her sorrows in this respect invoke commiseration in the public journals. But great as is the difference still between English and American servants, as indicated by the above extract, the former are in a steadily 'progressive' state, and every year brings them nearer in their condition to the happy—and, fortunately for the rest of mankind, as yet anomalous—state of American domesticdom. An article in the London Saturday Review thus comments upon this progress:

'It seems to be too generally forgotten that servants are a part of the social system, and that, as the social system changes, the servants change with it. In the days of our great-grandmothers, the traditions of the patriarchal principle and the subtile influences of feudalism had not died out. 'Servitude' had scarcely lost its etymological significance, and there was something at least of the best elements of slavery in the mutual relation of master and servant. There was an identification of interests; wages were small; hiring for a year under penal obligations was the rule of domestic service; and facilities for changing situations were rare and legally abridged. It was as in married life; as the parties to the contract were bound to make the best of each other, they did make the best of each other. Servants served well, because it was their interest to do so; masters ruled well and considerately, for the same practical reason. Add to this that the class of hirers was relatively small, while the class of hired and the opportunities of choice were relatively large. These conditions are now reversed. As education has advanced, the social condition of the class from which servants are taken has been elevated, and it is thought to be something of a degradation to serve at all. 'I am a servant, not a slave,' is the form in which Mary Jane asserts her independence; and she is only in a state of transition to the language of her American cousin, who observes, 'I am a help, not a servant.' It is quite true that there are no good servants nowadays, at least none of the old type; and the day is not perhaps so very distant when there will be no servants at all.'

The servant classes of France, Germany, and the other Continental countries, seem to be, to a great extent, free from the faults that beset those of England and America. A recent number of Bell's Weekly Messenger thus discusses this difference:

'The truth is that among the Celtic and Sclavonian families service is felt to be honorable; those engaged in it take it up as a respectable and desirable condition. They are as willing to acknowledge it as the physician, the lawyer, or the clergyman is to admit and be proud of their own. A French female servant, at least away from Paris, wears a dress which marks at once what she is. She is not ashamed of her condition, and nowhere is there such real attachment between servants and their employers as in France. In England, on the other hand, it is difficult to persuade a young girl to accept domestic service; she requires what she imagines to be something higher, or—to use her own word—more 'genteel.' If she be a dressmaker, or a shop girl, or a barmaid, she assumes the title of 'young lady,' and advertises—to the disgust of all sensible people—as such. This monstrous notion, which strikes at the root of all social comfort, and a great deal of social respectability, is on the increase among us. It is not quite so rampant as it is in America, but it is tending in the same direction. In fact, our household prospects are not promising. Since we feel that home cookery is far from rivalling that of the clubs, restaurants are being established in the city equal to those of Paris, and the cartoon of Punch is daily fulfilled with a terrible accuracy. 'What has your mistress for dinner to-day?' says the master of the house, on the doorstep, his face toward the city. 'Cold mutton, sir.' 'Cold mutton! Ah! very nice; very nice. By the by, Mary, you may just mention to your mistress that I may perhaps be detained rather later than usual to-day, and she is not to wait dinner for me.' With these things before our eyes, we cannot but feel grateful to any one who will bona fide undertake to teach a little plain cookery. The want of this is the cause of more waste than any other deficiency. The laboring man marries; but he marries a woman who can add nothing to the comfort of his home; she supplies him with more mouths to feed, and she spoils that which is to be put into them; she becomes slatternly, feels her own incapacity, and, finding that she can do but little of her duty, soon leaves off trying to do it at all. As her family increases the discomforts of her home increase, and the end is frequently—drunkenness, violence, and appeals to the police magistrate.'

The writer of the present article pretends to no peculiar fitness for the investigation of this important subject, and to no more varied and profound experience than that which has fallen to the lot of tens of thousands of others; but much observation leads to the conviction that the experience of any single family extending through a series of years of housekeeping, may be taken as a type of that of all families who have to employ servants; and if what shall be advanced in these pages shall have the effect of stimulating others more competent to thought upon the subject, with a view to practical suggestions for the amelioration of the universal difficulty, much will have been gained.

The chief evils we have to consider on the part of servants are, briefly, ignorance, wastefulness, untidiness, pertness, or downright impudence, and what is called 'independence,' a term which all housekeepers thoroughly understand. I leave out of the category the vices of intemperance and dishonesty, which, although lamentably prevalent among the class to which we are accustomed to look for our main supply of domestics, yet do not belong, as do the other faults I have named, to the entire class, and I gladly set them down as moral obliquities, as likely to be exceptional in the class under consideration as in any other. With regard to the other specified failings, every housekeeper will allow that it is so much the rule for a servant to be afflicted with the whole catalogue, that the mistress who discovers her hired girl to be possessed of a single good quality, the reverse of any I have named, as for example, economy, neatness, or a conscientious devotion to the interests of her employers, although she may utterly lack any other, fears to dismiss her, for fear that the next may prove an average 'help,' and have not a solitary good point. A girl who combines all the above-named good qualities is a rare treasure indeed, and the possessor of the prize is an object of envy, wide and hopeless.

In commenting upon the causes which produce bad servants, I shall confine myself more especially to those which develop in them the faults of wastefulness, impudence, and 'independence,' both because every housekeeper will allow that they are the most common as well as trying of all, and because it is only for them, I confess freely, I have any hope of suggesting a remedy. Ignorance of their duties is chronic in all Irish and German girls when they first go out to service, and their acquirement of the requisite knowledge depends very much upon the amount of such knowledge possessed by the housekeeper who has the privilege of initiating them. Untidiness is almost equally universal among the same classes, and, being a natural propensity, is extremely difficult of eradication. It may be stated, however, that given an average 'greenhorn,' Irish or German, the notable and tidy housewife will make of her a very fair servant, as well instructed as her native intelligence will allow, and, unless a downright incorrigible, whose natural slatternliness is beyond the reach of improvement, a certainly tolerably neat, and possibly a very tidy servant. And just here I will remark that it is an unquestionable fact that the good housekeeper has a much more encouraging prospect of making a useful servant out of one of these same 'greenhorns' than of a girl who has been longer in the country, and who has nevertheless yet to be 'licked into shape.' Of course this remark covers the whole ground, and it is obvious that to start a girl right in habits of economy, respectfulness, etc., is quite as important as to start her right in any other good habit. It is not necessary to say further that starting right is not of itself enough: there must ever accompany the progress of the servant in improvement, the watchful eye and guiding hand of the skilled mistress and head of the family. I cannot, within the scope of this article, enter into the consideration of the important correlative branch of my subject, which includes the fitness of housekeepers to make good servants out of the rough, to keep good what they so find, or to improve such as they receive, be they good or bad. It is obvious that this fitness presupposes a practical knowledge of the science of housekeeping—(how worthy it is to be called a 'science'!)—and a willingness to accept and carry out the responsibilities which devolve upon the mistress of a family. I admit that very many of those who keep servants are utterly unfit in many important senses for the responsibilities of family economists. Yet I still believe it possible for even the most inexperienced housekeepers to adopt and pursue, in their management of servants, one or two cardinal principles which will save them a vast deal of vexation. Of these, more hereafter.

The very prevalent pertness and 'independence' of servants are due, primarily, unquestionably to the great demand for them, and the ease with which situations are procured. This is not, in my judgment, because the supply is inadequate; I do not believe it is. It is because the frequent changings of servants by our families places it in the power of every one of the former to procure a situation without the slightest trouble. A girl about to leave a place has but to inquire for two or three doors around, to find some family about to change 'help.' This 'independence' is also undoubtedly fostered by a false and exaggerated idea which these girls imbibe from their brothers, 'cousins,' etc.—the voting 'sovereigns' of the land—of the dignity of their new republican relation. Most of the 'greenhorns' begin humbly enough, but, after a few months' tutelage of fellow servants, and especially if they pass through the experiences of the 'intelligence offices' (of which more anon), they are thoroughly spoiled, and become too impudent and 'independent' for endurance. The male adopted citizen, fawned upon by demagogues for his vote, is 'as good as anybody;' and why not Bridget and Katrina?

Now I do not broach the abstract question of equality: I am willing to admit that in the eye of our Maker we are, and before the law ought to be, all equal—that is to say, ought all to have an equal chance; but to abolish the idea of subordination in the employed to the employer, and to abrogate the relation of dependence of the servant upon her or his master or mistress, would simply be to reverse the teachings of inspiration and nature. As well say that the child shall be independent of the parent as that the servant shall not be subject in all reasonable things to the master.

It is worthy of remark that this spirit of insubordination spoken of is far more rife among girls of Irish birth who go out to service than among the Germans, Scotch, or English. Neither is there among these latter so much clannishness, or disposition to establish the feeling under consideration as a class prejudice and principle of conduct, as there is among the former. The absence of such a homogeneity of feeling among German, English, and Scotch domestics makes them much more favorable subjects for the operation of the rules I propose to suggest for their improvement.

The clannishness just alluded to is a very important influence among those which tend to produce insubordination and other serious faults among servants. Every housekeeper must have observed that a marvellous facility of intercommunication exists among the servant classes, and more particularly among the Irish. There seems to be some mysterious method at work, whereby the troubles and bickerings of each mistress with her 'help' are made known through the whole realm of servantdom. It is no uncommon thing for a mistress to have minutely detailed to her by her hired girl the particulars of some difficulty with a previous servant, with whom she has no reason to believe the narrator has had any intercourse. So frequently does this happen that many housekeepers religiously believe that the Irish servants are banded together in some sort of a 'society,' in the secret conclaves of which the experiences of each kitchen are confided to the common ear. This belief is not confined to American housekeepers, but obtains very extensively in England also. The arrest and punishment of a woman in London for giving a good 'character' to a dishonest servant, who subsequently robbed her employer, naturally caused some excitement in housekeeping circles in that city, and numerous communications to The Times evinced the feeling upon the subject. In one of these 'A Housekeeper' boldly asserts that there are combinations among the servants, and that housekeepers who refuse to give a certificate of good character are 'spotted,' and find in consequence the greatest difficulty in obtaining any servants thereafter. Indeed, she asserts that in some instances, so rigorously does the system work, offending families have been compelled to relinquish housekeeping, and go into lodgings or abroad, until their offence was forgotten! The fundamental principle which our housekeepers believe to pervade these societies is that employers are fair game; that the servant has to expect nothing but to be oppressed, persecuted, overworked, ground down, and taken advantage of at every opportunity, and that it is her duty, therefore, to hold the employer at bitter enmity, and to make the best fight she can.

Now such a belief can scarcely be termed absurd, and yet it is unquestionably groundless. The mysterious 'understanding' of servants, and their wide knowledge of each other's experiences, may be explained upon a perfectly simple and rational theory, and I think we may venture to reject the 'society' hypothesis altogether.

Servant life is as much a world in itself as political, religious, or art life. Indeed, its inhabitants are even more isolated and self-existent than those of any other sphere, for while the politician, theologian, and artist are generally, to some extent, under the influence of interests and passions other than those which belong exclusively to their special walk, the dwellers in kitchens have but the one all-embracing sphere, and its incidents, which seem to us so trivial, are to them as important as the great events which we think are worthy of being embalmed in epics or made imperishable in history. To them the reproof of the mistress or the loss of wages for the careless pulverization of a soup tureen is lawful theme for the agitation of all servantdom. Martin Luther had his tussles with pope and devil, Handel and Gluck had their wars with the hostile cabals, Henry Clay had his John Randolph and Andrew Jackson—and Bridget and Catharine have their disturbing and absorbing questions of 'wages,' and 'privileges,' and other matters; and a wrangle that the mistress forgets in a day, the maid carefully cherishes in her memory, and makes it the theme of widest discussion. Without resorting, then, to the improbable notion of the existence of a secret society among the servants, through which the knowledge of our difficulties with them is disseminated, I think the theory above outlined sufficiently explains what seems so mysterious. There can, however, be no question that the feeling among servants generally is unfortunately something like that alluded to above as the imaginary inspiration of a hypothetical society, namely, that employers are oppressive, exacting, and utterly selfish; and there is certainly a tacit understanding that, as between servant and mistress, it is 'diamond cut diamond;' and the habit domestics have of making common cause with a sister in trouble, no doubt practically works as much evil as if such a society as has been mentioned really existed. The girl, confronting her adversary, in military phrase, feels a hundred comrades 'touching her elbow,' and her lip is wonderfully stiffened thereby. Now it is needless for me to say that the idea that these poor girls have, that their employers are their natural enemies, is wrong and absurd, and every housekeeper should endeavor to make this clear to her servants. If this false idea could be eradicated, and the true theory established that the interests of the employer and employé are identical, much will have been accomplished toward making better servants.

Among the influences which are at work to spoil servants, none are more baleful than the system, as at present conducted, of 'intelligence offices.' These agencies might be and ought to be among the most useful of our social institutions: they are, as a class, utterly worthless, and many of them are positively dens of thieves. Almost without exception they are conducted upon the vicious principle I have just above discussed, and in them the servant is confirmed in her belief that the employing class is a class of cruel oppressors. The interest of the employer seems to be held by the managers of most of these institutions as absolutely of no account. The following conversation, which actually took place in one of these offices, between its proprietor and an applicant for a domestic, will illustrate, better than a lengthy disquisition could do, the system upon which too many of these employment agencies are conducted:

Lady. I want a girl for general housework.

Proprietor. Well, I can suit you, if you can be suited. Here's a girl, now, just out of a place, and I can recommend her (beckoning to one of the fifty girls who are seated in full hearing of all that passes).

Lady (after a few questions addressed to the girl, who, of course, can cook, and bake, and wash and iron, and is extravagantly fond of 'childer,' etc., etc.). Well, there is one thing I am very particular about. I want a girl who is honest. The last girl I had from you I had to discharge for making too free with my stores for the benefit of her own family relations.

Proprietor (with an insolent sneer). Honest! humph! that depends upon what you call honest. Some people call a girl a thief if she takes a bit of cake from the pantry without saying, 'By your leave.' (Chorus of giggles and approbatory nods from the sympathizing audience of fifty.)

The crude notions of the respective rights of meum and tuum furnished the 'help' graduated by such an institution, may be imagined.

Some pains are occasionally taken to provide a regular customer, whose patronage it is desirable to retain, with a good servant, but generally all is fish that comes to their net. The business is now in such ill odor that intelligence-office servants are proverbial for worthlessness and all the worst qualities of the class. I have known a thief, a drunkard, and a vixen to be sent from one of these offices in succession, the victimized housekeeper finally begging that no more be sent, preferring to let the retaining fee go, than to be pestered any further. It is well known that the more decent and self-respecting of the class of domestics rarely, now, enter their names upon the books of intelligence offices. Indeed, such seldom have occasion to seek places; if they do, they usually prefer to advertise.

In this employment-agency business a radical reform is needed. A respectable and conscientious man at the head of such an institution, managing it upon the principle that it is just as much his interest to furnish the employer with a good servant as to provide the servant with a good place, would be truly a public benefactor. In this, as in all other kinds of business, honesty would be found the best policy. It is a base imposition to recommend as good a servant who is known to be bad, and it is just as dishonest to recommend as good one whose character is totally unknown. It should be the business of every purveyor of household 'help' to ascertain, by rigid investigation, the characters and qualifications of those who apply for places; and they should steadily refuse to have anything to do with any they cannot honestly recommend. This, we repeat, they would speedily find their best policy. In this way, and this only, can they win back the confidence and patronage of the public; and they would soon find that the worthless characters who now constitute their main stock in trade, would be superseded by a much better class. There would be another important benefit to the servants themselves in such a course. In an office thus conducted, the known necessity of being able to show a clean record in order to procure a place, would reform many a bad servant, who now, knowing that her twenty-five cents will procure her a place (and no questions asked by the agent, so that he need tell no lies), has no incentive to improvement or good conduct. There would soon be a rivalry among servants as to who should stand highest upon the roll of merit.

The fault which has been before alluded to under the name of 'independence,' deserves more special mention than I have yet given it. It is probably the most exasperating, as it is the most general of all the failings of servants. It makes the timid and sensitive housekeeper a slave in her own house. No matter how grave may be the offences of her hired girl, she must bear them in the meekest silence. Even the most friendly advice, conveyed in the blandest possible tone, is often declined with freezing dignity or repelled with tart resentment. The cook who makes a cinder of your joint, or sends you up disgusting slops for coffee, or the laundress between whose clean and soiled linen you are puzzled to choose, has almost invariably the reply, uttered with a majestic sternness that never fails to crush any but a veteran and plucky housekeeper: 'This is the first time any mistress ever found fault with my cooking (or washing), and I have always lived with the best families, too.' The cutting emphasis with which this point of the 'best families' is pushed home, is familiar to nearly every housekeeper. It was scarcely a departure from sober truth in the lady who, on being asked if she kept a hired girl, replied that she had an Irish lady boarding with her, who occasionally condescended, when she had nothing of more consequence to do, to help a little in the work of the family. An amusing trifle is going the rounds of the papers, which well hits off, and without much exaggeraration, the self-assumed prerogatives of the servant girl of our great cities:

"Now, Miss Bradford, I always likes to have a good, old-fashioned talk with the lady I lives with, before I begins. I'm awful tempered, but I'm dreadful forgivin'. Have you Hecker's flour, Beebe's range, hot and cold water, stationary tubs, oilcloth on the floor, dumb waiter?' Then follows her planned programme for the week: 'Monday I washes. I'se to be let alone that day. Tuesday I irons. Nobody's to come near me that day. Wednesday I bakes. I'se to be let alone that day. Thursday I picks up the house. Nobody's to come near me that day. Friday I goes to the city. Nobody's to come near me that day. Saturday I bakes, and Saturday afternoon my beau comes to see me. Nobody's to come near me that day. Sunday I has to myself."

I have now pointed out some of the principal faults of servants, and indicated what I believe to be some of the causes of those faults. Alluding, in passing, to some influences which it seems to me might be made available in correcting some of these faults, I have yet to mention what I conceive to be the most important reason of all for the general worthlessness of the class under consideration. And in noticing this I shall necessarily couple with that notice some suggestions which I firmly believe, if put into practice, will be exceedingly beneficial in producing the reform we all so ardently wish for. And I feel the less hesitation in saying this, because they are based upon no theory of my own devising, but upon principles which are everywhere recognized and acted upon, except, singularly enough, in the conduct of our domestic affairs. To be brief, then, I attribute the greatest of the evils of our system of domestic service to a want of business management in our domestic affairs.

A wife, in the truest sense, is her husband's most important business partner—his partner in a more complete and comprehensive sense than any other he can have. It is not, as many seem to imagine, the business of the wife to spend the money the husband earns. She is as much bound to forward the mutual prosperity as he is. The household is her department of the great business of life, as her husband's is the store, the manufactory, or the office. Her department does not embrace the conduct of great enterprises, bargains, speculations, etc.; she has only to remember and act upon the brief, simple maxim: 'A penny saved is a penny earned.' In this way she can greatly advance the common weal. If she fails to act constantly upon this principle, she is an unfaithful and untrustworthy partner, and is as much, to blame as if her husband were to neglect his stock, his shipping, his contract, or his clients. Why should the husband be expected to manage his part of the business upon sound and correct business principles—system, responsibility, economy—while his helpmeet is letting hers go at loose ends, with a shiftlessness which if he should emulate would ruin him in a year?

Now what is the principle upon which every good business man manages his affairs? Why, simply that of sovereignty. In his domain his will is law, and no employé dare question it. He has to deal with the male counterparts of Bridget and Catharine, as porters, laborers, sometimes as cooks and waiters; but he has no trouble. The 'independent' man soon goes out of the door. If he be a manufacturer, he does not allow his employés to help themselves to his stores and material. He keeps, if he is a sensible man, his stock under lock and key, and exacts a rigid accountability in their use. What is to prevent the introduction of just such a system of accountability in the family economy? 'Why,' say many housekeepers, 'we would not dare to lock up our butter, and eggs, and flour, and sugar; we could not keep a girl a day if we doled out our stores and held our servants responsible for their economical use.' But, dear, doubting mesdames, your business partner does this every day, and we should like to see the clerk or apprentice who would even 'look black' at him for doing it. Perhaps your business partner has to employ girls; if so, he has many Irish among them; don't they stand his manner of doing business, without grumbling? If they don't, they find another shop, that's all. Suppose this case: A manufacturer of jewelry reasons as you do. He says: 'I cannot keep my hands satisfied unless I give them free access to my stock of gold, silver, and diamonds. I must throw open my tool drawers, so that they can help themselves; and I must not ask how much material this or that manufactured article has taken to make.' That man would have to shut up shop in a year, even if he were not robbed of a dollar. Now, I ask, is it fair to expect the husband to be orderly, systematic, and business-like, and to superintend his business himself, while the wife surrenders her legitimate affairs to the hands of ignorant and irresponsible subordinates?

But the female partner of the shrewd man of business, or the plodding, hardworking mechanic, may be inclined to say, 'I hate business,' and to think it hard that she should be called upon to regulate her household affairs upon any such severe and rigid rules. But, my dear madam, apart from the clear fact that it is your duty to manage your household wisely and prudently, which we have seen cannot be done without business system, of which you must be the head, I assure you that such a system is neither intricate nor vexatious. It does not necessarily entail upon you the least participation in the actual labor of the family. It does not absolutely require your personal presence at the scene of those labors, although the woman who considers it beneath her dignity to go into her kitchen, has no more business to undertake to keep house than the master mechanic, who is too proud to enter his workshop, has to try to carry on a shop. The absolutely essential thing is that yours should be the directing and controlling mind, and that to you every one in your employ should be held rigorously responsible. Now don't tell me that such a system cannot be introduced with the present race of servants; that you would be left half the time without anybody to do your work; that until mistresses can combine to lay down rules for the better regulation of domestic service, you must submit to the present evils. You are not justified in assuming any of these things to be so, until you have honestly and thoroughly tried the experiment in your single household. To make such a system work, it is of course necessary that your servants should be made to understand perfectly certain facts, which you should take pains distinctly to announce to every new domestic you engage. They are so plainly just and reasonable that the most captious servant cannot take exception to them as a matter of principle. It must depend upon your persevering spirit and firm hand that they do not fail in practice. First, you should tell your servant that, employing them at a stipulated rate of wages, to do certain, work, their time belongs to you. Tell them that you insist upon their being absolutely under your direction and control, that you expect to grant them all reasonable privileges, but that they must be regarded as privileges, and not as rights. Tell them distinctly that, if you prefer to keep your stores under lock and key, it is not because you suspect their integrity, but because you consider it as your business as a housekeeper to know what is the cost of your living. Tell them that you are in the habit of keeping an accurate account of your expenses, and that, in consequence, it is necessary that you should know of every cent that is expended. If these facts are clearly made known and consistently acted upon, much of the trouble of managing servants is done away with.

Although the plan of keeping a book of family accounts only belongs incidentally to the main subject under discussion, it is so important that I cannot refrain from a more special mention of it than is given above. It is the simplest thing in the world, not taking more than ten minutes on an average every day. For reference, in case of a disputed bill, it is invaluable, while its influence in keeping down expenses is wonderfully wholesome.

If the affairs of a family are to be conducted on business principles, the family account book cannot be neglected. It would be just as safe and sensible for the merchant to neglect his cash book, as for his domestic partner, who undertakes to do her business properly, to fail to keep her cash book.

One of the regulations which is proposed posed above as part of the system of family management is, in my judgment, as important in its bearing upon the honesty of the servant as it is upon the question of economy. I refer to the keeping the family stores under the immediate care of the housekeeper. It is nothing to the discredit of servants that this is said. More people are honest through circumstances than is generally supposed. Many a servant is tempted into habits of pilfering by the free and unquestioned access she has to the family stores. I have before used the case of a man carrying on a business and having employés under him, to illustrate my subject. Suppose a merchant or a bank should allow all their clerks free access to the safe or till, they knowing no cash account was kept. If some of these boys or young men were tempted to steal, would not the blame lie chiefly at the door of those who, having it in their power, yet did not remove the temptation?

Having now given a few rules for the improvement of servants, which are easily tried, and which I know from observation of their practical working are worth a trial by every housekeeper, I wish to add a few words concerning the material of which, our present supply of servants consists, and to offer some observations upon the question of a prospective supply of possibly a better material.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that four fifths of our female servants are Irish. I have already given several reasons why this class are more intractable and difficult to manage than any other. To apply the rules I have given to this class will be more difficult than to the domestics of any other nation. But, as I have said, I have seen them enforced with success even in cases where an Irish domestic was the subject. And here let me repeat that almost everything depends upon the starting right. No Irish girl ever yet went to a new place perfectly sure of her ground, although they generally can measure the quality of their mistress during the negotiations which precede the engagement. In starting with a new servant, it is emphatically the first encounter that must decide who is to be the ruler. Dignity, coolness, and decision, upon the first attempt to 'put on airs,' will generally bring you off permanent conqueror.

By some housekeepers German domestics are preferred. They are naturally less impulsive and more amenable to control than the Irish. Their class prejudices are not so violent; there is less unity of purpose among them, and they are, in consequence, more favorable subjects for the application of the rules given than are generally the Irish. It is, however, difficult to assimilate the German girls to American customs. They are not apt to learn, and great patience is required in teaching them. The virtues of order and cleanliness seem to be not only rare in them, but exceedingly difficult to graft upon them. Their cooking, especially, is generally execrable. But once properly trained, they make the best of servants. They are generally contented, almost always cheerful and good tempered, and have little of that irritating pertness and 'independence' so characteristic of the Irish domestic.

That branch of the present subject which relates to the going out to service of American women has been publicly discussed somewhat more extensively than any of the others, particularly of late, it having entered largely into the question of woman's labor, which has been attracting considerable attention. It is truly a deplorable thing that household service is so generally regarded as a menial employment, not fit for an American woman to engage in. Our countrywomen will do almost anything rather than go out to service. They will work ten or twelve hours a day in close, unwholesome shops, surrounded by all the unsexing and contaminating influences attending the customary free and easy commingling of male and female employés in such places. They will accept avocations from which the native delicacy and neatness of an American girl must revolt. They will put up with wages which will barely keep body and soul together, wear the meanest clothes, submit to the vilest tyranny and extortion, rather than enter a position where they will have but the natural, wholesome labor of woman to perform, that of domestic life; accompanied by all the pure influences and comforts of a home. I would be rejoiced if anything I could say would be useful in removing this absurd and injurious prejudice among American women toward domestic service. There is surely nothing menial in the work they would have to do. It is woman's work all over the world, far more so than a hundred other occupations they now eagerly seek. Their repugnance to the position itself is the sticking point. This repugnance is based upon a chimera. They are, in any position in which they labor for wages, 'servants' in as complete a sense as if they labored for wages in household employments. Far be it from me to say a word to lower that just and honorable pride which is the birthright of the American girl. But in declining domestic service for that of the shops, the American girl declines an honest, reputable, healthful, and every way elevating employment, for, in many cases, a dwarfing, degrading, wretched slavery; she turns from her natural and proper sphere to enter a walk of harsh and degrading experiences, in which it is not possible she can pass her life. A word on this latter point: Almost every young woman expects some day to marry. Now, I ask, what sort of a fitting can a girl receive in a shop for the serious business of homekeeping? The significance of this word 'homekeeping' is not apparent at a glance. It means far more than mere 'housekeeping' although the latter is one of its most essential elements. A girl of sixteen is forced to earn her own living. She chooses to go into a shop. Grant that she escapes contamination from the influences heretofore alluded to; that her health bears up under confinement, bad air, scanty food, and insufficient clothing—all of which are experiences too familiar with women who labor at mechanical employments;—when she reaches a marriageable age, and takes the important step which is to 'settle her for life,' what is her condition? The chances are that she has become the wife of some hardworking mechanic, or man of scanty means, who cannot afford to keep a fine lady in his domestic establishment. But she knows no more of the mysteries of housekeeping than she does of the Latin kalends. She must keep a servant, who will waste the common substance, and keep her husband's nose perpetually at the grindstone, to the great wear of mutual comfort and temper. And once more: There is far more of forecast in young men seeking wives than they commonly get credit for. The neat, smart girl, who works in the shop, may get a good husband—the young woman who is a notable, tidy, thrifty housewife, is sure to be sought after.

I would add a remark upon another point. American girls are frequently heard to say they would not object to going out to service could they be 'treated as one of the family.' No American girl who respects herself need fear that in an American family she will fail to command respect. It should be remembered that the rigid line which is drawn in most families between mistress and servant, is not simply because such relations exist, but because there is generally absolutely nothing in common between them save sex alone; no community of nationality, religious belief, intelligence—nothing which can excite mutual sympathy, or move to homogeneity. The American girl who lives out at service need not fear that she will occupy a position in all respects corresponding to that occupied by the great mass of servants.

It is highly probable that we shall be able hereafter to procure many valuable servants from the South. When freedom shall have taken the place of slavery, and labor becomes honorable in that section, many Southern women will do—as many Northern women always have done—their own work. In this way many servants will be set free. Then, when it becomes necessary to pay wages to servants, there will be a swarming out from the kitchens of the South of Dinah and Phillis et als., and many of these superfluous servants will find their way North. Already out of the bloody wreck of society at the South, through the flaming borders of bayonets and cannon, have drifted into happy Northern homes thousands of valuable servants, and they will be followed by thousands more, 'when this cruel war is over.' We cannot judge of the qualities of colored servants from the wretched specimens we have heretofore had among us. The trained house-servants of the South are the best in the world. They are docile, cleanly, quick-witted, and respectful to humbleness.

There have been many projects devised looking to the education of girls for housekeeping. There was a very excellent institution in existence ten years ago in one of the Eastern States, which combined with the customary course of intellectual instruction a systematic training in the mysteries of housekeeping. The writer has heard nothing of this school for some years, and presumes it has failed for want of support. We train our daughters only to shine in the drawing room, and the real graces of life are neglected. Music, French, and Italian are very excellent things, but they should stand second, not first, in the acquirements which we should desire for those who are to be future wives, mothers, and mistresses of families.[1] But this is a little apart from the present subject. The idea of a school for training girls for housekeeping, however, suggests a thought on the expediency of an institution for the education of servants. Such a project has frequently been urged as a most desirable one to be put into operation, though I am not aware that it has ever been tried.[2] Of course it cannot be expected that girls wishing to become servants could enter such an institution if it cost anything for instruction. But there can be no question that, purely as a matter of speculation, such a school would be a success. If, in one of our large cities, an institution should be opened by some one having the requisite knowledge, embodying the principle of our present intelligence offices, taking young girls and training them gratuitously, some for cooks, waiters, nursery maids, laundresses, and a larger number for what is termed 'general housework,' it being understood that in selecting the material the proprietor had an eye to honesty and intelligence, it would be an immense success. The servants graduating from such an institution would be eagerly sought for, and would command the highest wages. The fee for furnishing a servant could be placed at a much higher rate than is now paid at intelligence offices, and would be paid readily, for the employer would be reasonably confident of securing a good domestic. Such institutions would go very far toward remedying the evils under which we now groan, and I trust it will not be many years before schools for servants will be among the recognized institutions of our country.

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER XII.

A week passed away. It was toward the end of a bright and cloudless day, and Rome was gradually arousing itself from its wonted siesta. The heat had at no time been oppressive, for during the whole morning a cool breeze had been gambolling across the Campagna from the sea; so that even during the small hours of the day, the streets had not been kept free from moving masses of life. Now that the atmosphere became still further tempered, fresh throngs poured forth from all the smaller passages and alleys, until the greater arteries of the city swarmed with eager, animated crowds.

More now than at any other time during the few weeks that had just elapsed; for upon the morrow was to commence the dedication of the great amphitheatre of Titus, and thousands of strangers had already poured into Rome to witness the games, combats, and pageantry. From the surrounding towns and villages—from the cities of the south—from the confines of the Alps—even from the farthermost provinces, countless throngs had assembled to greet an occasion second only to the grand triumphal entry with the spoils of Jerusalem.

From her window overlooking the streets, Ænone surveyed the panorama of life spread out before her. Upon the battlements and towers of the Cæsars' house, in full sight over against the Palatine Hill, floated the imperial banners, gently waving their folds in anticipation of the splendors of the ensuing days; and round about stood crowds of strangers, wondering at the magnificence of the palace architecture, and the vast compass of its walls, and straining their eager gaze in the hope of being able to catch a chance glimpse of the emperor himself. Farther down was the now completed Colosseum, around which other thousands stood watching the pigmies who, in dark clusters upon the top and along the edge, laboriously erected the poles upon which, in case of need, to stretch the protecting velarium. This was the last outward preparation of all; and when that was done, everything would be ready. As one of these poles was being elevated, he who had hold of the lower end of it lost his balance, and fell to the ground. He was lifted up outside, dead—a shapeless, gory mass. The crowd shuddered to see that helpless body falling from such a height; but, at the next moment, all sympathy passed away. The man wore a slave's dress, and was recognized as belonging to the prætorian lieutenant Patrocles. Upon the morrow, if he had lived, he was to have appeared in the arena as a retiarius—he would then most likely have been conquered and slain—it was merely a day sooner—a victim outside the walls instead of within—he had clambered up to overlook the ground upon which he was to have fought, and need not thus recklessly have volunteered to aid the regular laborers—it was his fate—Deus vult—what more could be said?

Ænone had not witnessed the fall, for she had not been looking at palace or amphitheatre, both, of which were too familiar with her to attract her attention. The one had been for years the centrepiece of her view—and the other had grown up arch by arch and tier by tier so steadily before her eyes that it seemed as though she could almost count its stones. Her gaze was now fixed upon the open space beneath her window, where the Sacred and Triumphal Walls joined—a space always at that hour gay with a phantasmagoria of shifting life, and at this time more than ever provocative of curiosity and attention. Its bordering palaces, already being hung with lively tapestries for the morrow—its sparkling fountains—its corners decked with arches—its pavement thronged with carriages and horsemen—the crowds of slaves, beginning in advance to take their holiday, and affording pleasing contrasts as they wound their way in slender currents through the openings in the throng of their betters—the soldiery passing here and there in large or small detachments—where else in the world could such a varied scene of life and animation be presented?

First before her eyes passed a number of the prætorian guard, with martial music, cutting the crowd asunder like a wedge in their steady march toward the imperial palace. Then came the chariot of the African proconsul, with liveried footmen in front, and Nubian slaves, in short tunics and silver anklets, running beside the wheels. After that a covered van, toilsomely dragged along by tired horses and guarded by armed slaves in livery. The imperial cipher was emblazoned upon the dusty canvas screen thrown over the top, and from within, at intervals, came half-smothered growls and roars. It was some wild beast arriving at this late hour from Nubia—a contribution from some provincial governor—a booty which had cost pounds of gold, and perhaps the lives of many slaves, and which was now destined to perform, in the sanded arena, the combats of the jungle. The crowd, which had let the African proconsul pass by with but a careless glance of uninterested scrutiny—for dignitaries were too common to excite much curiosity—pressed tumultuously and with frantic eagerness around the heavy cage, exulting in each half-stifled roar from within as though it were a strain of sweet music—and thus followed the van until it arrived at the amphitheatre and passed out of sight through one of the deep, low arches leading to the tiers of grated stone cages, already well filled with the choicest forest spoils of every tributary country.

Then came a black-bearded horseman. The trappings of his steed were marked with the insignia of distinction; and footmen, with staves, ran before him to clear the way. He sat with proud and haughty mien—as one who felt his power and immunity, and yet with the expression of one aware that all his rank and state could not protect him from secret scorn and hate. Not many looked at him; for, in that thronging display of wealth and power, a single gayly caparisoned horse and two liveried footmen counted for almost nothing. One or two, however, of those few who study men for their deeds alone, turned and gazed scrutinizingly after him, for he had already taken rank as one of the historians of the age. And as he passed farther along, a group of slaves, whose marked features denoted Jewish descent, suffered expressions of aversion to break from them; some turning their backs—some gazing up with faces inflamed with the fiercest intensity of hate—while one, less cautious, clenched his fist and hurled after the rider a handful of dust and volleys of heavy Hebrew curses. And so the apostate Josephus passed on, and was gradually lost to view.

After him, slowly wending his way on foot through the crowds, occasionally moving aside to allow others, more urgent, the privilege of passing him, and constantly careful not to excite the impatient wrath of those nearest to him by a too lively pressure, yet all the time making sure progress along his chosen path, came a single figure—a white-bearded man, in plain, coarse tunic and well-worn sandals. Few regarded him or even seemed to know that he was there, except when in their hurry they found it expedient to jostle him one side. But in his face gleamed an intelligence far beyond what could be expected from one in his humble attire; and as Ænone watched him, a suspicion crossed her that the poor, beggarly dress and the quiet, yielding mien were assumed to baffle observation. Soon another person in similar dress but of fewer years met him. The two joined hands and looked earnestly into each other's eyes, and the older one appeared to mutter a word or two. What was that word, at which the younger bent his head with reverent gesture? Was it a command or a blessing? Whatever it was, in a second it was all said. The hands then unclasped—the bended head raised with a startled glance around, as though with a fear that even such a mere instant of humble bearing might have betrayed something which should be kept secret; and then the two men parted, and were swallowed up in different sides of the concourse.

'I know that person,' said Cleotos, He had been gazing, for the past minute, out at the same window with Ænone; and while attracted by the humble figure of that old man, he had noticed that she had been equally observant.

'You know him, Cleotos?'

'They call him Clemens, noble lady. He is a leader of the Christian sect, and a person of influence among them. It was at Corinth that I first saw him, and it was he who let me copy the good words which are written upon my little leaf of parchment. That was two years ago, but I still recognize him. What does he here? Why should he thus peril his life In public?'

'Give me that little scroll, Cleotos,' said Ænone. 'Let me have it for my own.'

Cleotos gazed at her for a moment in dismay. Was she about to use her authority, and take away from him by force those few lines, which, though he understood them so little, had often served to cheer his heart with their promises of future rest and joy? If so, he must submit; but of what avail, then, was all her previous kindness?

'I ask it not as mistress, but as friend,' she said, reading his thoughts. 'I ask it because, when you are away, I shall need some memory of what have been happy days, and because I may then often wish to apply those same words of comfort to my own soul. You can make another copy of the same, and, in your own land, I doubt not, can find, with proper search, many more words of equal value.'

'In my own land?' Cleotos repeated, ed, as in a dream. But, though her meaning did not as yet flash upon him, he knew that she spoke in kindness, and that she would not ask anything which he would not care to grant; and he drew the little stained parchment from beneath his tunic, and handed it to her.

'Close, now, the window, Cleotos, and shut out from sight that giddy whirl, for I have something to say to you.'

He closed the window with its silken blind; and then, in obedience to her motion, glided away from before it She seated herself upon her lounge, and he upon his accustomed stool in front of her.

'Think not, Cleotos,' she said, after a moment's silence, 'that I first brought you hither to become a mere slave. It was rather done in order that, when the proper time came, I might set you free. Had she—Leta—but shown herself worthy of you, the day might have come when I could have managed to free her also, and send you both home again together. But that cannot be. You must go alone, Cleotos, but not, I hope, despairingly. Once again in your own loved Samos, I know that, sooner or later, there will be found some other one to make you forget what you have suffered here.'

He could no longer doubt her meaning—she was about to give him to liberty again. At the thought the blood rushed to his heart, and he gasped for breath. For the moment, as he gazed into her face and saw with what sisterly sympathy and compassion she looked upon him, the impulse came into his mind to refuse the proffered freedom, and ask only to remain and serve her for life. But then came such floods of memories of his native place, which he had never expected to see again—and its hills and streams and well-remembered haunts seemed to approach with one bound so near to him—and the faces of the loved ones at home began once again to look so tenderly into his own—and the thought of throwing off even the light, silken chains which he had been wearing, and of standing up in the sight of heaven a free man again, was so grateful to his soul—what could he do but remain silent and overpowered with conflicting emotions, and wait to hear more?

'Think not to refuse your liberty,' she said, as she read his doubts and perplexities, 'It must not be. No man has the right to suffer degradation when he can avoid it. And though I might continue kind to you, who can answer for it that I should live to be kind to the end? No, no; from this instant be a free man again. And, for the few moments that remain to us, strive to think of me only as your equal and your friend.'

Still silent. What, indeed, could he say? She knew that he was grateful to her, and that was enough. But why should he, of all slaves in Rome, find such kindly treatment? What had he ever done to deserve it? And—as often before—that puzzled look of wondering inquiry came over his face while he gazed into her own. She noticed it, but now made no attempt to disguise herself by any forced and unnatural assumption of haughty pride. Were he at last to learn the truth, there could surely no harm come of it.

'You must depart to-night,' she said, 'and before it becomes known that I am sending you away; lest, knowing it, others might claim authority to delay or prevent you. Take this little purse. It contains a few gold pieces, which you may need. And here is a written pass which will lead you to Ostia. There you will go to the tavern of the Three Cranes, and inquire for one Pollio, who has a vessel ready to sail for Samos. In that vessel your passage is paid. Show him this ring. It will be a token for him to know you by. And keep the ring ever afterward, as a sign that you have a friend left here, who will often think of you with pleasure and interest.'

'My mistress,' he said, taking the ring and placing it upon his finger, 'what have I done that you should be thus kind to me?'

'Nay; no longer mistress, but friend,' she said, with a melancholy smile. 'As such alone let us converse during the hour that remains, for you must soon leave me. It may be that when you arrive at Ostia, the vessel will not be ready to set sail, nor yet for a day or two, for its owner spoke to my messenger concerning possible delays. If so, there will be time for you to look around you, and think of the days when you wandered along the shore, hand in hand with your chosen one. You will, perhaps, go over those wanderings again—along the sands leading past Druse's olive grove to the altar of Vesta, or to the—'

'How know you about Druse's grove?' he cried with a start; and again that look of keen inquiry came into his face. It was but a single step now—he stood upon the very border of the truth. Should she repress him? It were hardly worth the while. So she let him gaze, and, if anything, softened her features yet more into the old familiar expression.

'Past Druse's Grove, Cleotos—or to the smooth rock which the waves washed at Cato's Point. Do you remember, Cleotos, how often we there sat, you holding me with your arm while I slid down the sloping side, the better to dip my naked feet into the water?'

With a wild sob he seized her hand, and threw himself at her feet. Near to the truth as he had been standing, it seemed at the last to burst upon him with as much force as though even a suspicion of it had been a thing before impossible. And yet, at the same time, it appeared to him as though he must have known it all the while; for how could he comprehend his blindness?

'Ænone,' he cried, 'send me not away! Let me stay here to serve you forever!'

'Oh, speak not thus!' she said, touching his lips lightly with her finger. 'Had you not been about to go from here, you should never have recognized me. Forget, now, all that has ever passed between us; or rather, strive to remember it only as a pleasant dream which left us in its proper time. If the Fates separated us, it was only because they were wiser than ourselves. Those bright anticipations of our youthful love could never have been fully realized; and, if persisted in, might have led only to sorrow and despair. Let me not blush now at having revealed myself to you. Think, for the few minutes that remain to us, of friendship and of duty alone.'

Raising him up, she placed him beside her, and there they talked about the past and its pleasant recollections. How the cross miller, who had never been known to do a kindness to any one else, had sometimes let them ride upon his horse—how they had once rowed together about the bay, and he had taken her aboard his ship—how she had stolen away from home each pleasant evening to meet him, and with what feeble excuses—and the like. As the shades of afternoon deepened and shut out from sight the gilded cornices and costly frescoes, and all else that could remind them of present wealth, and as, each instant, their thoughts buried themselves still further in the memories of the past, it seemed to them, at last, as though they were again wandering hand in hand upon the beach, or sitting upon the wave-washed rock at Cato's Point.

With something wanting, however. No force of illusion could bring back to either of them, in all its former completeness, that sense of mutual interest which had once absorbed them. Whatever dreams of the past might, for the moment, blind their perceptions, there was still the ever-present consciousness of now standing in another and far different relation to each other. Though Ænone musingly gazed upon his face and listened to his voice, until the realities of the present seemed to shrink away, and the fancies of other years stole softly back, and, with involuntary action, her hand gently toyed with his curls and parted them one side, as she had once been accustomed to do, it was with no love for him that she did it now. He was only her friend—her brother. He had been kind to her, and perhaps, if necessary, she might even now consent to die for him; but, with all that, he was no longer the idol of her heart. Another had taken that place, and, however unworthy to hold it, could not now be dispossessed. And though Cleotos, likewise, as he looked at her and felt the gentle pressure of her hand upon his forehead, seemed as though transported into the past, until he saw no longer the matron in the full bloom of womanhood, but only the young girl sparkling with the fresh hue and sunshine of early youth, yet to him still clung the perception that there was a barrier between them. What though the form of the treacherous Leta may then have faded from his memory as completely as though he had never seen her? What though. Ænone's pleasant and sympathetic tones may have again melted into his heart as warmly as when first whispered at Ostia? The smile upon her face—the winning intonation of her voice—all might seem the same; but he knew that he must bide within his own heart all that he had thus felt anew, and be content with the offered friendship alone, for that not merely her duty but her altered inclination had separated her from him forever.

At last the brief hour came to an end, and Ænone arose. The sun had set, and the darkness of night had already begun to shroud the city. Here and there, from some of the more wealthy neighborhoods, faint glimmers of lamp light shone out and marked the scenes of solitary study or of festive gathering, but as yet these indications were few. Already the chariots and horsemen who had thronged the Appian Way had dispersed—a single rider here and there occupying the place where so lately gay bands had cantered, disputing each available empty space of pavement. The walks were yet crowded with loiterers, but of a different class. Patricians and fair ladies had departed, and left the course to the lower orders of citizens and to slaves, who now emerged from the arches and alleys, and, anticipative of the morrow's holiday, swarmed in dusky crowds hither and thither in search of rude pastime.

'You must go now,' said Ænone, dropping the curtain which she had lifted for a moment in order to peer into the street. 'Stay not for anything that belongs to you, for I would not that you should be hindered or delayed. You have been here as mine own property; and yet, how do I know that some pretence of others' right might not be urged for your detention, if it were known that you were departing? Go, therefore, at once, Cleotos, and may the gods be with you!'

She held out her hand to him. He took it in his own, and, for the moment, gazed inquiringly into her face. Was this to be their only parting? Nay, need there be a parting at all? A flush came into his countenance as he felt one wild thought and desire burning into his soul. What if he were to yield to the impulse which beset him, and should throw himself at her feet, and ask her to forget the years which had separated them, and the trials which had beset them, and to give up all else, and depart with him? Alas! only one result could follow such an appeal as that! In the vain attempt to gain her love, he would lose her friendship also. She would part from him as an enemy who had taken advantage of her sisterly affection to inflict an insult upon her. He knew that this would surely be the consequence; but yet, for the moment, he could scarce resist the maddening impulse to thus forfeit all while striving to attain impossibilities.

'Shall we never meet again?' he said, at length, after the hard struggle to command himself.

'It may be, in after years; who can tell?' she answered. 'And yet, let us rather look the truth in the face, and not delude ourselves with false hopes. The world is very wide, and the way from here to your home is far, and the fatalities of life are many. Dear Cleotos, let us rather make up our minds that this parting is for ever; unless it may be that the gods will let us look upon each other's faces again in some future state. But there may be times when you can write to me, or send some message of good tidings; and then—'

'Talk not to me of the gods!' he interrupted, in a storm of passionate exclamation. 'What have they ever done for us, that we should worship or pray to them? Why look to them for blessings in a future state, when they have done us such evil in the present life? Here we were poor and lowly together; and have they not dragged us apart? And will they, then, in another life, be the more disposed to let us see each other's faces—you one of the nobles of the earth, and I one of its meanest plebeians? Is it written in the temples or by the priests and oracles, that when the Cæsars are throned in Olympus, their lowly subjects shall be permitted to approach, them any nearer than when here? How, then, could we meet each other better hereafter than now? Away with all talk about the gods! I believe not in them! If we part now for this world, it is for eternity as well!'

'Oh, say not that!' she exclaimed. 'And still pray to the gods as of old, for they may yet bring good out of all that now seems to us so obscure. Remember that to the best of us, this world offers little but what is mingled with unhappiness. Take not, therefore, away from yourself and me a belief in something better to come.'

'Take, then, with you, a belief in the God about whom I learned in Greece, for He it is who tells of comfort hereafter for the poor and oppressed, and He is the only one who does so,' Cleotos doggedly answered.

'It may be—it may be,' she said. 'Who can tell which is right? We have so often talked about it, and have not yet found out. They may both be the true gods—they may neither of them be. Ah, Cleotos, my brother, let us not doubt. It is pleasanter and safer, too, that we should believe, even if we extend our faith to a belief in both. Choose, then, your own, as I will mine. I must not abandon the gods in whose worship I have been brought up; but when I pray to them, I will first pray for you. And you—if you adopt the God of the Christians, who speaks so much better comfort to your soul—will always pray to Him for me. And thereby, if either of us is wrong, the sin may perhaps be pardoned, on account of the other, who was right. And now, once more—and it may be for ever—dear Cleotos, farewell!'

'Farewell, Ænone, my sister!' he said. And he raised her hand and pressed it to his lips, and was about turning sorrowfully away, when the door flew open, and Sergius Vanno burst into the room.

APHORISMS.—No. XII.

See 'neath the swelling storm,
The willow's slender form
With grace doth ever yield;
While oaks, the monarchs of the field,
In pride resist the blast,
And prostrate lie, ere it is past:
But now the storm is o'er,
The willow bows no more;
While oaks from overthrow
No rising ever know.

So with the meek, in strife
Against the storms of life;
Though often roughly cast,
They stand erect at last:
But those who will not bend
To what their God doth send,
Are whelmed in lasting woe,
And rising up will never know.

A GLANCE AT PRUSSIAN POLITICS.

PART I.

[The author of the ensuing article, the topic of which is just now one of special interest, is Mr. Charles M. Mead, a gentleman who has spent the last year in Germany. Having resided in the family of Professor Jacobi, who fills the chair of history in the University of Halle, he has had excellent opportunities for making himself acquainted with his subject. Having a natural taste for political studies, he has investigated it in its many bearings with calm impartiality, and written upon it con amore. The conclusion will be given in our next issue.—Editor Continental.]

The struggle now going on in Prussia, whatever may be the issue, must be regarded as one of immense political importance. To Americans certainly, no less than to any other people, is the character and progress of this struggle a matter of profound interest. Though it cannot be said that the contest is that of revolutionists or even of republicans against a legitimately ruling monarch, yet the real principles involved in the contest are in substance those of absolutism and of democracy.

Deep and irreconcilable as is now the opposition between the two contending elements, all Prussians are proud of Prussia's history. In order to a correct understanding of the present circumstances of the country, a brief survey of its previous history is necessary.

In respect to the national domain, perhaps no other instance can be found so striking as that here presented, of a steady growth of an insignificant territory, from the first surrounded by powerful nations, to a size which entitles it to rank among the first Powers of the earth. Passing over the first few hundred years of her history, during which period much confusion prevailed as to boundaries as well as everything else, we find that as late as 1417 the country embraced a territory of only about seven thousand eight hundred square miles, or of about the size of Massachusetts; whereas its present extent is about one hundred and twelve thousand square miles, i. e., about as large as New England, New York, and New Jersey.

In respect to population, the increase is proportionally great. In 1417 it was only one hundred and eighty-eight thousand five hundred; now it is over eighteen millions. As to general culture, the progress of the nation and its present relative position in the scale of civilization leave little for national pride to wish.

The history of the nation commences with the conquest of Brandenburg by the Saxon emperor Henry I., in 927. He founded the so-called North Mark, and set over it a margrave. The government was administered by margraves until 1411, when, after a century of anarchy, during which the Mark was struggled for by many aspiring dukes, it was delivered over by the emperor Sigismund, an almost worthless possession, to Frederick of Hohenzollern, burggrave of Nuremberg, with the title of elector.

The house of Hohenzollern is still the reigning dynasty. In 1701, Frederick III., who became elector in 1688, secured from the emperor Leopold I. the title of King Frederick I. Not king of Brandenburg, since Brandenburg belonged to the Austrian empire, but king in Prussia, the name of a Polish duchy acquired by John Sigismund as a feudal possession in 1621, but in 1656 made an independent possession by Frederick William. Not king of Prussia, but in Prussia, because not all the territory to which that name belonged was included in the afore-mentioned duchy. The rest was not annexed till 1772, so that Frederick the Great was the first king of Prussia. And not till 1815 was the name Prussia strictly a designation of the whole land now so called.

We cannot stop even to glance at the political condition of the nation during the period of the electorate, interesting as it might be, and important as revealing the sources of subsequent political developments. Yet in passing, this at least must be borne in mind, that there was all the while a struggle going on between the nobility and the monarchy, the latter gradually gaining in strength.

Frederick I., whose vanity led him to make it his main object to secure the name of king, did less than his immediate predecessor, the 'great elector,' toward deepening the foundations of the monarchy. The most noticeable feature of his reign was the increase of the standing army from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand. He secured the title of royalty. It remained for his son and successor to secure its power and authority.[3]

Frederick William I. was the first absolute monarch of Prussia. He was a man of rough manners and coarse tastes. Caring little for the pomp of royalty, he jealously sought to maintain his hold on the essence of it. No sooner had he dried the tears shed over his deceased father, than he dismissed the larger part of the court attendants, cut off unnecessary expenses, inaugurated a simple style of living in the court, and began to direct his attention to the improvement of the military and financial condition of the country. More than any predecessor, he identified the office of king with that of commander-in-chief of the army. His domineering disposition carried him so far that he personally scolded and threatened with blows whoever seemed to him lazy and shiftless, however little the matter personally concerned him. So violent was his temper that, because his son, afterward Frederick the Great, displayed more taste for literature, and less for religion and warfare, than he had wished, he became disgusted with him, threateningly raised his cane whenever he saw him; and, when the prince, exasperated by constant abuse, formed a plan of escape to Sinsheim, the king, having discovered it before its execution, was so infuriated that, except for the intervention of bystanders, he would have run him through with his sword. As it was, at one time he beat him furiously with his cane. Frederick's confidant was executed before his eyes, and he himself condemned to a long banishment from the court; and not till he had shown signs of repentance, was he readmitted to it and to his father's favor. Frederick William is famous for the 'tobacco club' which he established, at whose sessions over the pipe and the beer he and his friends indulged in the most unrestrained mirth and freedom; also for his monomania concerning 'tall fellows'—a passion for securing as many regiments as possible of extraordinarily tall soldiers, for which he spared no pains, and often paid little regard to the personal wishes of the tall fellows themselves. To increase their number, he scoured all Europe, other monarchs being not unwilling to secure his good will by providing him with the coveted men, for whom his almost insane passion made him willing to give any price. But the real significance of his reign in relation to Prussia's subsequent history, is the impulse which he gave to her military tastes, and his success in establishing firmly the absolute authority of the monarch. The power of feudal lords had already been shattered; it required only a strong army and a strong will to destroy it altogether. These the king possessed. He reigned at a time when the obstacles to the exercise of unlimited power by the king were not what they now are, viz.: a desire on the part of the people in general for a constitutional government. The most certain way to secure the esteem of the people was to centralize the power in himself, and then exercise that power in the promotion of the people's material welfare. This the king did. He laid the foundations of the still existing system of general school education. He invited colonists from abroad to settle in the more uncultivated parts of his domains. He reformed the judiciary. He diminished the taxes, and yet by his economy increased the real revenue of the state from two and a half to seven and a half millions. Himself disinclined to become entangled in foreign wars, he raised the troops and the money without which his son could not have won the military glory which has given him the title of the Great.

Frederick William I. established the absolute monarchy by internal political changes and institutions. Frederick the Great secured for it a solid foundation in the hearts of the people. The one was thoroughly autocratic in disposition, and not seldom displayed this disposition too offensively; the other knew how to use his hereditary power without seeming to care about it. In fact, under the influence of Voltaire and the French liberalism, he himself learned to cherish very liberal opinions respecting popular rights. But practically he was absolute, and preferred to be so. By his brilliant military successes in the two Silesian wars and in the Seven Years' War he roused the national enthusiasm for the royal house to the highest pitch. He secured for Prussia the rank of a great Power in Europe. He enlarged her boundaries, and, notwithstanding his expensive wars, promoted the general prosperity of the land. Genial and kind-hearted, he won the affections of the people, so that loyalty was easy and pleasant—none the less so, the more completely the object of the loyalty was the king's person.

The reign of Frederick William II. was not characterized by any special development in the political condition of the country. Lacking in energy and decision, given to self-indulgence, controlled by courtiers and favorite women, although by the partition of Poland he increased the national domains, and by educational measures helped to promote German literature instead of the French preferred by his father, he was yet too inferior to the great Frederick to be able to uphold the glory of the royal house. By his disgraceful withdrawal from the First Coalition and the Treaty of Basle, by which he yielded to France all of Prussia lying beyond the Rhine, he prepared the way for her subsequent humiliation by Bonaparte.

The long reign of Frederick William III. is the richest period of Prussia's history. Here begins that development whose progress is now one of the most noteworthy of our time. The king, cautious, conscientious, patriotic, but timid, declined to join the Second Coalition (1799), hoping thereby to secure Prussia against the ravages of war. Prominent Prussians, moreover, were positively friendly to Napoleon; so that, even after the latter had violated his obligations by marching through Prussian territory, the king hesitated a year to declare war. This was done August 9, 1806; but two months later his army was routed at Jena; Napoleon entered Berlin; the Prussians were finally defeated at Friedland by the French, and at Tilsit, July 9, 1807, the Prussian king was forced to give up the half of his domains, and to furnish the conqueror a tribute of one hundred and forty millions of francs. For six years Prussia lay prostrate at the feet of France. In 1812 he was compelled to furnish twenty thousand men to join Napoleon's army in his invasion of Russia. Not till after the disastrous issue of this invasion did king or people dare to lift an arm in defence of the national independence. But these years compose just the period which Prussians love to call that of Prussia's regeneration. The insolence of the conqueror united the national heart. Full of the most flaming patriotism, and not doubting that deliverance would finally come, statesmen and warriors, Stein, Scharnhorst, Blücher, Schill, and others, labored unweariedly to keep up the spirits of the people, and prepare them for the coming War of Liberation. Now for the first time the cities were invested with the right to regulate their own internal affairs. Now for the first time the peasants were delivered from the serfdom under which they had hitherto suffered. In short, the whole policy of the Government was determined by the resolution to inspire the people with a healthful, unconstrained, enthusiastic devotion to the national weal, and, as a means to this end, with zeal for the king. These efforts were fully successful. When the providential time arrived, and the king issued, February 3, 1813, a call for volunteers, and, March 17, his famous Aufruf an mein Volk, all Prussia sprang to arms. In alliance with Russia, finally also assisted by Austria and Sweden, her troops were engaged in nine bloody battles with the French between April 5 and October 18, the enthusiasm of the people and the dogged intrepidity of Blücher being at length rewarded by the decisive victory at Leipsic. The immediate result of this victory for Prussia was the recovery of the territory between the Elbe and the Rhine ceded to France by the preceding king. At the congress of Vienna there were assigned to her in addition all that she had possessed before the Treaty of Tilsit, half of Saxony, and an increase of the former possessions on the Rhine. Some further acquisitions and cessions were made at the second Treaty of Paris, November 2, 1815, since which time the boundaries of Prussia have been little changed.

This brief sketch of the so-called War of Liberation could not have been avoided in an attempt to describe the present political condition of Prussia. The enthusiasm with which the semi-centennial anniversary of the battle of Leipsic was celebrated on the 18th of last October by men of all parties and sentiments was a lively evidence of the profound influence of that war on the national character. The chief significance of the war for Prussia was its influence in uniting the people in the pursuit of a common patriotic end. It was a struggle for national existence; and all minor considerations were for the time forgotten. It tended to break down the barriers which before had so effectually separated the higher from the lower classes. The Government had need of the hearty aid of all Prussians; and, in order to secure this, it was necessary to abandon the invidious distinctions which, in spite of all previous reformatory measures, made a large portion of the people practically slaves. The sentiment was encouraged, that whoever was ready to lay down his life for his country deserved full protection from his country. The promise was made that this should henceforth be the spirit and practice of the Government.

We are here to mark a twofold influence on the political sentiments of the Prussian people springing from the war against French invasion. On the one hand, from here dates the first positive preparations for, and expectations of, a national representative assembly—a change from an absolute to a limited monarchy; on the other, the perfect identification of the interests of the king with those of the people, combined with a real love for the royal family, made the people satisfied, after the restoration of peace, to continue under the sway of a king in whom, though his power was unlimited, they had perfect confidence that he would use his power with conscientious regard to their good. To this day the recollection of those years of pious loyalty, when every citizen cherished a feeling of filial love and trust toward Frederick William III., is the chief element of strength in the conservative party. Prussia, they say, is what her kings have made her; the house of Hohenzollern has raised her from an insignificant beginning to the rank of a great Power; under this rule the people have prospered; no tyranny has disgraced it; there is no need of a change; there is no danger that a continuance of the former order of things can ever inure to our hurt; gratitude to our sovereigns requires us not to attack their hereditary prerogatives. There is danger of foreigners, especially republicans, not fully appreciating the force of these considerations. To us, the fact that one king, or even a series of kings, have ruled well, is no proof that they have a divine right to rule; still less, that, when their policy comes into conflict with the decided wishes of the people, they have a right by unconstitutional measures to resist the popular will. But it must be remembered that Prussia, even in the midst of the present conflict, is thoroughly monarchical. No party pretends to wish any change of the present form of government. Patriotism has so long been associated with simple devotion to the royal house, and the royal house has so uniformly proved itself not unworthy of this devotion, that it is no easy matter, especially for those who by nature are conservative, to be satisfied with a change which reduces the monarchical office to a merely empty hereditary honor. In addition to this, it would be unfair not to recognize the fact that the most cultivated and religious part of the Prussian people belongs to the Conservative party. This, as a general statement, is, as all acknowledge, true. That the exceptions, however, are very numerous, is no less true. It is also, doubtless, not unjust to assume that the dependence of churches and universities on the state leads to much hypocritical piety and selfish loyalty. Yet the general fact that the most estimable citizens are royalists, is not so to be accounted for. The War of Liberation was a war not only against French aggression, but against a power whose origin was to be traced to a contempt not only of time-honored political customs, but also of Christianity itself. Revolutions and republicanism became associated with infidelity. It was natural, therefore, that Christians should acquire the notion that every approximation toward democracy would involve danger to the church; especially as the church and state were united, and the king not only professed personal belief in Christianity, but endeavored to promote its interests by his administrative measures. It was to them a touching recollection that their king and the Austrian and Russian emperors kneeled together on the battle field of Leipsic to offer to the Lord of hosts their thanks for the victory that he had vouchsafed to them. And when two years later the same monarchs united themselves in the Holy Alliance, it is not strange, whatever may now be thought of their motives, that Christians should have rejoiced at the sight of princes publicly acknowledging their obligation to rule in the interests of Christianity, and binding themselves to promote the religious good of their subjects. As republicanism in France had appeared in a positively unchristian form, here monarchism appeared in a positively Christian form. Nothing was therefore more natural than that their devotion to the king—already, for other reasons, hearty and enthusiastic—should be increased as they thought they saw in him the surest defender of the church. Instead, therefore, of encouraging or wishing a separation of church and state—a consummation which it was in the power of leading theologians, to procure—they preferred a still closer union. Nor is it to be wondered at that, ever since, men of the most earnest piety have made a defence of the royal prerogatives a part of their religion, and that some have gone even so far as to deny that in Prussia a Christian can be anything but a Conservative. It cannot but serve to soften many prejudices against this party to know that men like the venerable Professor Tholuck, of Halle, are decided supporters of the Government, and regard the triumph of the Liberal party as almost equivalent to the downfall of the church. And it may serve in part to excuse the persistence of the Government in its course to know that it is advised so to persist by men who should be supposed to have the highest good of the country at heart.

But, on the other hand, as we have remarked, the seeds of the present Liberal party were sown during this same period of national disaster, and that, too, by the royal hand. The regeneration of Prussia is attributed by all to the indefatigable efforts of the minister, Baron von Stein, and, after he was deposed by command of Napoleon, of his successor, Count Hardenberg. Their work, however, consisted not only in abolishing villanage, the usufruct of royal lands, serfdom, the exemption of the nobility from taxation, and the oppressive monopoly of the guilds; in giving to all classes the right of holding landed possessions and high offices; in the reconstruction of the courts; in the enfranchisement of the cities; in the promotion of general education; in relieving military service of many abuses and severities;—this was not all: the king was moved to issue, October 27, 1810, an edict, in which he distinctly promised to give the people a constitution and a national parliamentary representation. A year later this promise was renewed. 'Our intention,' says the king, 'still is, as we promised in the edict of October 27, 1810, to give the nation a judiciously constituted representation.' That this promise was not immediately fulfilled is, considering the condition of the country, not specially surprising. Whatever may then have been the king's personal inclinations, there is perhaps no reason to doubt that he intended to introduce the constitution as soon as the return of peace should give him the requisite means of devoting to the subject his undivided attention. That the promise was originally drawn from him by the urgent influence of his counsellors, especially Von Stein and Hardenberg, there is every reason to believe. That he should have been inclined, unsolicited, to limit his own power, is more than can ordinarily be expected of monarchs. The bad love power because it gratifies their selfish lusts; the good, who really wish the weal of their subjects, can easily persuade themselves that the more freely they can use their power, the better it will be for all concerned. But, for whatever reasons, the pledge was given; yet, though Frederick William reigned thirty years after giving it, he never fulfilled the pledge. It may be that, had he done so, the party divisions which now agitate the land would not have been avoided. Conservatives might have complained that he had yielded too much to the unreasonable demands of an unenlightened populace; Liberals might have complained that he had not yielded enough; at all events, the opposing principles, of the divine right of kings, and of popular self-government, whatever form they might have taken, would have divided public sentiment. This may have been; but even more certain is it that the failure on the part of the monarch to carry out a promise solemnly and repeatedly made, a promise which he never would have made unless believing that it would gratify his people, could not but lead ultimately to a deep disaffection on the part of the people. His course resembled too much the equivocating prophecies of the witches in Macbeth; he kept the word of promise to the ear, and broke it to the hope. It is then not strange that many should have found their faith in royalty weakened, and come to the conclusion that whatever was to be gained in the point of popular government must be secured by insisting on it as a right which the Government nolens volens should be required to concede.

Such, in general terms, is the animus of the two political parties of Prussia. Turning to a more particular consideration of the historical progress of events, we find that the first movement toward a freer development of popular character was made by Frederick the Great. Throughout his life he was inclined, theoretically, to favor a republican form of government; and, although he was no friend of sudden changes, and did not think that the time had come for a radical change in Prussia, he yet recognized the truth that a king's duty is to act as the servant of the state; and, in spite of the sternness with which, in many relations, he exercised his power, he introduced some changes which may be regarded as the earnests of a permanent establishment of a constitutional government. These changes consisted specially in the increase of freedom which he allowed respecting the press, religion, and the administration of justice. But, as we have seen, nothing like a real limitation of the royal power was undertaken until the War of Liberation seemed to make it a national necessity. The changes which Frederick William's ministers made in the social and political condition of the people were in themselves of vast and permanent importance. They were made under the stimulus of a more or less clear recognition of the truth of natural, inalienable rights. Fighting against a people whose frightful aggressions were the product of this principle abnormally developed, they yet had to borrow their own weapons from the same armory. Or, if the republican principle was not at all approved, the course of the Government showed that it was so far believed in by the people that certain concessions to it were necessary as a matter of policy. But these changes were yet by no means equivalent to the introduction of republican elements in the Government. An approach was made toward the granting of equality of rights; but this was only granted; the Government was still absolute; strictly speaking, it had the right, so far as formal obligations were concerned, to remove the very privileges which it had given. But the promise of something more was given also. Besides the already-mentioned renewal of that promise, the king, June 3, 1814, in an order issued while he was in Paris, intimated his intention to come to a final conclusion respecting the particular form of the constitution after his return to Berlin. In May, 1815, he issued another edict, the substance of which was that provision should be made for a parliamentary representation of the people; that, to this end, the so-called estates of the provinces should be reorganized, and from them representatives should be chosen, who should have the right to deliberate respecting all subjects of legislation which concern the persons and property of citizens; and that a commission should be at once appointed, to meet in Berlin on the first of September, whose business should be to frame a constitution. But this commission was not then appointed, and of course did not meet on the first of September. Two years later the commissioners were named; but their work has never been heard of.

Here is to be discerned a manifest wavering in the mind of the king respecting the fulfilment of his intentions. The German States, taught by the bitter experience of the late war the disadvantages of their dismembered condition, and bound together more closely than ever before by the recollection of their common sufferings and common triumphs, saw the necessity of a real union, to take the place of the merely nominal one which had thus far existed in the shadowy hegemony of the house of Hapsburg. The German Confederation, essentially as it still exists, was organized at Vienna by the rulers of the several German States and representatives from the free cities, June 8, 1815. Although there was in this assembly no direct representation of the people, it is clear that its deliberations were in great part determined by the unmistakable utterances of the popular mind. For one of the first measures adopted was to provide that in all the States of the Confederacy constitutional governments should be guaranteed. Frederick William himself was one of the most urgent supporters of this provision. It is therefore not calculated to elevate our estimation of the openness, honesty, and simplicity for which this king is praised, and to which his general course seems to entitle him, that as late as March, 1818, in reply to a petition from the city of Coblenz, that he would grant the promised constitution, he remarked that 'neither the order of May 22, 1815, nor article xiii. of the acts of the Confederacy had fixed the time of the grant, and that the determination of this time must be left to the free choice of the sovereign, in whom unconditional confidence ought to be placed.' We are to account for this hesitation, however, not by supposing that he originally intended to delay the measure in question so long as he actually did delay it, but by the fears with which he was inspired by the popular demonstrations in the times following the close of the war. The fact was palpable, not only that the idea of popular rights, notwithstanding the miserable failure of the French Revolution, had become everywhere current, but that, together with this feeling, a desire for German unity was weakening the hold of the several princes on their particular peoples. At this time sprang up the so-called Deutsche Burschenschaft, organizations of young men, whose object was to promote the cause of German union. The tri-centennial anniversary of the Reformation, in 1817, was made the occasion of inflaming the public mind with this idea. The sentiment found ready access to the German heart. It was shared and advocated by many of the best and ablest men. As subsidiary to the same movement, was at the same time introduced the practice of systematic and social gymnastic exercises, an institution which still exists, and constitutes one of the most prominent features of the German movement. Immense concourses of gymnasts from all parts of Germany meet yearly to practise in friendly rivalry, and inspire one another with zeal for the good of the common fatherland. But the Burschenschaft in its pristine glory could not so long continue. The separate German Governments were naturally jealous of the influence of these organizations, and, though not able to accuse them of directly aiming at treason and revolution, were ready to seize the first pretext for striking at their power. A pretext was soon found. A certain Von Kotzebue, a novelist of some notoriety, suspected of being a Russian spy, wrote a book in which he attacked the Burschenschaft with great severity. A theological student at Jena, Karl Sand, whose enthusiasm in the cause of the Burschenschaft had reached the pitch of a half-insane fanaticism, took it upon him to avenge the wounded honor of the German name. He visited Kotzebue at the dwelling of the latter, delivered him a letter, and, while he was reading it, stabbed him with a dagger. Sand was of course executed, and, though it was proved that the crime was wholly his own, though the German Confederation, through a commission appointed specially for the purpose of searching all the papers of the participants in the Burschenschaft movement, found no evidence of anything like treasonable purposes, yet it was resolved that these 'demagogical intrigues' must cease. The Burschenschaft was pronounced a treasonable association; its members were punished by imprisonment or exile. The poet and professor Arndt and the professor Jahn, prominent leaders in the movement, were not only deposed from their professorships, but also imprisoned. The celebrated De Wette was removed from the chair of theology in the University of Berlin, simply because, on the ground that an erring conscience ought to be obeyed, he had excused the deed of Sand. In short, the princes intended effectually to crush the efforts which, though indirectly, were tending to undermine their thrones. Seemingly they succeeded. But they had only 'scotched the snake, not killed it.' It is easy to see that these developments must have shaken Frederick William's purpose. Of all things, the most unpleasant to a monarch is to be driven by his subjects. In the present case he saw not only a loosening of the loyalty which he felt to be due to him, but also a positive transfer of loyalty, if we may so speak, from the Prussian throne to the German people in general. If he should now grant a popular constitution, he would seem not only to be yielding to a pressure, but would be surrendering what he regarded as a sacred right, into the hands of ungrateful recipients. He therefore set himself against the popular current, gave up his former plan, and contented himself with restoring, in some degree, the form of government as it had existed before the establishment of the absolute monarchy. He gave, in 1823, to the estates of the provinces, a class of men consisting partly of nobles and owners of knights' manors, partly of representatives of the cities and of the peasants, the right of advising the crown in matters specially concerning the several provinces. Nothing further was done in the matter of modifying the constitution during the reign of Frederick William III., although he declared his intention of organizing a national diet.

Comparative quiet ensued till 1830, when the French revolution, followed by the insurrection of the Austrian Netherlands against Holland, and of Poland against Russia, again stirred the public mind. But, although the Polish revolution, on account of its local proximity and ancient political relations, threatened to involve Prussia in war, she yet escaped the danger, and passed through the excitement with little internal commotion. But the existence of disaffection was made manifest by sundry disturbances in the chief cities, which, however, were easily quelled. Suffering under no palpable oppression, accustomed once more to peace, seeing no prospect of gaining any radical change in the form of government except through violent and bloody measures, which, as experience had proved, would, after all, be likely to be unsuccessful, the masses of the people had little heart for a constant agitation in behalf of an indefinite and uncertain good. Those who did continue the agitation exhibited less of zeal for German unity and more for that sort of liberalism which had been current in France, than had marked the efforts of the Burschenschaft. Many of the leaders were obliged to escape the country, in order to avoid arrest.

In 1840, Frederick William IV. ascended the throne. According to the old custom, he summoned to Koenigsberg the estates of the provinces of Prussia and Posen to attend the coronation and take their oaths of fealty. On this occasion he inquired of this body whether they would elect twelve members of the East Prussian knighthood, to represent the old order of lords, and what privileges they wished to have secured. They replied that they saw no need of reviving that order; and as to privileges, instead of mentioning any in particular which they desired to see protected, they wished them all protected and confirmed. They then reminded the king of the promise of his father to give the nation a constitution and a diet. The king replied that their reasons for declining the first proposal were satisfactory, but the establishment of a general representation of the people he must decline to grant, 'on account of the true interests of the people intrusted to his care.' The dissatisfaction produced by this reply was somewhat tempered by the splendor of the coronation ceremonies, and by the hitherto unknown condescension of the king in addressing the assembled throng as he took upon him the vow to be a just judge, a faithful, provident, merciful prince, a Christian king, as his ever-memorable father had been. Personally he was a man of more than ordinary talents and of estimable character. High expectations could be, and were, entertained of the success of his reign. One of his first acts was to release from prison those who were there languishing for having been connected with the Burschenschaft. He manifested in his general policy a mildness and benevolence which, had he lived when nothing had ever been heard of a constitution, would have doubtless secured for him the uninterrupted lore and devotion of his subjects. As it was, it is probable that his reign would have been disturbed by no serious outbreak, had the occasion for disturbance not come from without.

ASLEEP.

What, darling, asleep in this sylvan retreat!
Thy loose tresses sprinkled with rose petals sweet;
Blown in from the sunlight, some float to thy breast;
Less fragrant are they than their beautiful nest.

There flutt'ring a moment they rise and they sink,
As quivers a humbird his honey to drink,
Or fond doves a-wooing that shiver their wings,
Or throat of a song bird that throbs while he sings.

These petals at last swoon far down in thy snow,
Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know;
And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath,
And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death.

Thine eyes their dear curtains now shut from the light,
Sweet veined and blue tinted they round to my sight,
Fair shells of deep oceans! And sometimes a shell,
When close to your ear, its home secrets will tell:

But in music so mystic, you cannot guess
The strange tales of Ocean it tries to confess.
So lady, thine eyelids, as skies shut the sea,
Or shells try to whisper, are whisp'ring to me.

As glad streams of day 'neath the dawn's glowing tide,
So white keys of laughter thy curving lips hide,
Warm gates of the morning, when morning is new,
And red for the sunshine of smiles to break through!

Thy round arms rest o'er thee so fair and so lone,
Like that white path of stars across the night's zone:
That pathway, when twilight late vanishing dies,
Embraces the earth, though it quits not the skies.

Thus stars kiss the hills, and the trees, and the plain,
Yet never can they kiss the stars back again;
Though yearning they thirst for those arms of the sky,
They never will taste the white home where they lie.

So rivers and oceans with influence sweet,
Their mighty hearts swelling loved Luna to greet,
Strain sobbing their bosoms to hold her dear face,
And thrilled to their depths with her luminous grace,

In tossing waves rapturous rise to her smile.
In vain! Their coy queen half receding the while,
In slow fainting cadence they sink to the shore,
And hoarse tones of love-hunger moan evermore.

Ah, lady, bright sleeper, my soul, like the sea,
Illumed with thy beauty, is trembling to thee:
I kneel in the silence, and drink in the air
That, fragrant and holy, has toyed with thy hair;

And hushed in thy presence with worshipping fear—
The breeze even stills when it reaches thine ear—
My lips dare not whisper in softest refrain
The trance of my heart in its passionate pain.

Oh, open thine eyes! let their smile make me brave—
The Queen e'en of Ocean will look at her slave!—
Let me drown in their light—deliciously drown,
And lay thy white hand on my head for a crown,

And chrism. And thus regally shrived, might I dare
Exhale the warm infinite incense of prayer
From my deep soul to thine. Nor then couldst thou know
The wealth of the censer. Thou wak'st!—must I go?

A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

'I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;
I said, 'O soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.'

Tennyson.

Times are changed. Most people (i.e., Bostonians) now build their castles on the 'new land.'[4] But I belong to the old school, and I still build mine in the air.

The situation has its advantages. As Miss Gail Hamilton observed, when I had the pleasure of exhibiting it to her, it is airy. I need scarcely add that it is the favorite haunt of those kindred spirits Ari-osto and Ary Scheffer. It is too high ever to be reached by any unsavory odors from the Back Bay. Cool in summer it is also, notwithstanding, remarkably warm in winter. My castle is quite too retired for any critics to intrude upon it. They cannot get at the plan of it even, unless in the event of its being shown them by my friend, the editor of a popular magazine, which is a betrayal too improbable to enter into my calculations.

There is no stucco or sham about my castle. Like a fair and frank republican, I built it all of pure freestone, from the doorsteps up to the observatory. This observatory—I will speak of it while I think of it—holds a telescope exactly like the one at Cambridge, except that the tube has a blue-glass spectacle to screw on, through which it does not put out one's eye to look at the moon.

My workmen never make mistakes nor keep me waiting. The painters paint, the upholsterers upholster, and the carpenters carpent precisely when and as I wish. I do not have to heat myself by running over the town for straw matting, nor to catch cold in crypts full of carpets. Everything that I order comes to my door as soon as I order.

Every time that I go down Washington street, I choose something in the shop windows for my castle—an engraving at Williams & Everett's, a mosaic or classic onyx at Jordan's, or a camel's hair—for a dressing gown, of course at Hovey's. It really costs surprisingly little, and is an agreeable exercise of taste and judgment. It is likewise an exercise of benevolence. I select as many things for my guests as I do for myself. My castle is never too full. Little by little my tastes change; and little by little, I let most of my old treasures go to make room for new ones.

But certain principles always prevail in my selections. For instance, as my particular friend, the Reverend George Herbert, remarked, as he looked about him on one of his visits to my castle: 'Sober handsomeness doth bear the bell.' I cannot admit anything gaudy, needlessly exotic, or impertinently obtruding the idea of dollars. Now a travelled lady, who had heard of my castle, once offered me for it a buhl cabinet, of angry and alarming redness and a huge idol of a gilded trough, standing on bandy legs, and gorged with artificial flowers. And I thanked her for her kind intentions, ordered a handcart, sent the lumber to auction, and applied the proceeds to the benefit of the insane.

Tapestry, however, clever bronzes, sheathed daggers from Hassam's with beetles crawling on the hilts, and illuminated, brazen-clasped old tomes abound at my castle. They come to me one by one, each bringing with it its separate pleasure. I have no fancy for buying up, at one fell swoop, the whole establishment of some bankrupt banker or confiscated Russian nobleman. Instead of slipping at once, like a dishonest hermit-crab, into the whole investment of somebody else, I rather choose to come by my own, as I suppose other more happily constituted shell-fish do, by gradual and individual accretion or secretion.

My winter parlor looks down Beacon street. It is lofty, like all the rest of my apartments, but otherwise small and snug. The floor is of a dark wood, polished to the utmost. The great wood-fire loves to wink at its own glowing face mirrored in this floor; and, when alone, I often skate upon it. But as I do not wish to see my less sure-footed friends disposed about it in writhing attitudes expressive of agony and broken bones, I usually keep it covered, up to a yard's breadth from the dark-carved wainscot, with a velvety carpet, which was woven for me at Wilton, and represents the casting scene in the 'Song of the Bell.' The window curtains are of velvet, of just the shade of purple that nestles in the centre of the most splendid kind of fuchsia, and have an Etruscan border and heavy fringes of gold bullion. The walls are covered with a crimson velvet paper, of the hue of the outer petals of that same fuchsia, with little golden suns shining over it everywhere. One end of the room is further lighted up by a portrait of the terrestrial fury Etna, in a full suit of grape vines and an explosion of fiery wrath. Opposite is a spirited scene, by an artist who shall be nameless, suggested by a passage in an interesting sermon by Jonathan Edwards. The contemplation of the latter picture, especially, makes a chance sensation of chilliness a luxury rather than the contrary.

My tawny Scotch terrier, Wye-I, always takes up his position on the purple plush cushion at one side of the fireplace, and the Maltese cat, Cattiva, on the crimson one opposite, by instinct, because most becoming severally to their complexions. The cat never catches mice. There are no mice in my castle for her to catch. The dog is much attached to her. He is considered remarkably intelligent. In gratitude for my forbearing to cut off his tail, he uses it as a brush, watches the coals, and, when they snap out, sweeps them up with it. He sometimes, with a natural sensibility which does him no discredit, accompanies the performance with the appropriate music which has earned him his name.

My summer parlor is much larger. It is paved with little hexagonal tiles, green, purple, and white alternately, like a bed of cool violets, with a border of marine shells in mosaic. The walls are cloaked as greatly as the Cloaca Maxima, with verdant leaves, light and dark, through which, here and there, peeps a rock. There is no arsenic among them. The windows look seaward to see the ships come and go. Venetian blinds, of the kind that turn up and down, admit only green light at noon, softer or brighter according to my mood. Lace curtains sweep the floor with a slumberous sound when the sea breeze breathes in. Some of my visitors might say that this room was too empty. I should promptly disagree with them. To a person of correct taste, not to speak of a philanthropic bias, it must be painful to see, in warm weather, anything which calls up a vision of warm handmaidens, laborious with their brooms and dusters. Therefore I must persist in admitting here little furniture besides the oriental bamboo couches and porcelain barrels that flank the room, with little daisy-and-moss-like chenille rugs beside them. One Canton tepoy holds my aquarium, and another, beside the most frequented of the lounges, the last number of the most weighty of North American periodicals. If ever I take a nap, it is here.

In the centre of the room, a white-marble Egeria, carved by Thorwaldsen, throws up between her hands a shaft of cold crystal water, pure as truth, which spreads into a silvery veil all around her, and plashes down in a snowy basin: no place could be more inviting for a bath. But in the winter Egeria shows her power of adaptation by furnishing instead a Geyser of hot water. Then I turn my scientific friends in here, when they call upon me, to make them feel at home.

In the position of Jack Horner, sits Miss Hosmer's Puck. Opposite is a mate production, which she never put on exhibition. It is Ariel, perched hiding in a honeysuckle, and leaning slyly out to play on an Æolian harp in a cottage latticed window.

Over the somewhat frequented couch of which I have spoken, there is a picture by Paul Delaroche of

'Sabrina fair
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose folds of her amber-dropping hair.'

On the other side hangs another painting which I prefer, partly perhaps because even in my castle I was for a time at a loss how to procure it. The subject was recommended to me by Hans Christian Andersen. It is the story of a beautiful princess. Are not Danish princesses always beautiful?

Her numerous brothers were so unfortunate as to be laid, by a witch, under a spell of a most inconvenient sort. Every morning they were turned into wild swans. Every day they were obliged to fly over many a league of gray ocean to the mainland and back to their home, an island in the midst of the sea. At every sunset they resumed their natural shape, and were princes all night. One day they met their sister on the shore. They undertook to carry her back with them. Her Weight made them slower than usual. A storm came up in the after noon. There was a sad probability of the swans being turned into princes again before they could possibly 'see her home.'

In my picture, half of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired, perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fan her as they fly. Their outstretched gaze sees only the island. But the princess, as she lies facing backward, sees the danger. In despairing, motionless silence, she looks at the sinking sun, with no color in her cheeks but that which he casts upon her. The red, warning sun looks awfully back, face to face with her, in the narrowing strip of blue sky between two horizontal bars of thundering clouds, which the lightning is beginning to chain together, that the night may come before its time, and the enchanted princes and their sister may drown in darkness.

Church did the water very well, and Paul Weber the island. Rosa Bonheur was so kind as to paint the swans—I need not say how. But the rest of the picture was such a perplexity to me that I could think of nothing better than to send for Mr. Laroy Sunderland to call one day when I was out, and knock up Raphael to draw the princess, and Salvator Rosa, the clouds, and Titian to see to the sky and light. When I came in again, the completed whole met me as a pleasant surprise.

Not far off are Landseer's 'Challenge,' and a few other Arctic pieces of his, which I look at in July to keep myself cool. But the chief of my pictures are in the picture gallery, at the top of my castle, lighted from above. Connoisseurs assure me, with rare candor, that the 'Transfiguration,' 'Last Judgment,' 'Assumption of the Virgin,' and so forth, there, are duplicates rather than copies of the originals.

In my library there is scarcely a single picture to be found, nor a statue, nor a bust even, except of the duskiest, self-hiding bronze overhead—only some dim, dark engraving, or brown, antiquated autograph, fading in a little black frame, or a signet ring hanging against the book written by the crumbled hand that once wore it—only relics having the power to excite thought without distracting attention—- unobtrusive memorials of the dead with whom I am soon to live. Rich, black, old bookcases, carved all over in high relief, hold their immortal works or the records of their undying deeds. Even the writings of the living are sparingly admitted here. I stand on my guard constantly, lest I be enslaved by their influence. It is less by obsequiousness to the Present than by listening to the admonitions of the Past, that we may hope to gain a hearing from the Future.

Saints and seraphs, such as they appeared to Fra Angelico, look in upon me through the stained-glass windows, that I may always read and study as if under their holy eyes. Ivy runs thickly over their deep arched recesses, and over the stags' heads which surmount them. In winter, little but painted beams and glow come through them. In summer, the oriel opens of an evening to show me the phantom ships that haunt the misty, dreamy harbor; and the lattices that look westerly over the lake-like mouth of the Charles, are seldom shut against the sun or moon.

The floor is smoothly paved with broad, square slabs of freestone, on which is here or there engraved one or another illustrious name, like a 'footprint on the sands of time,' with a date of birth and death. Tables that match the bookcases support portfolios containing allegorical designs by Relszch, Blake, and Albrecht Durer. On a writing desk, that was once Vittoria Colonna's, a little Parian angel holds my ink for me, kneeling as if to ask a blessing upon it, and to entreat me to blot no pages with it in the souls whereon I write,

Μηδἑ μουσἁ μοι
Γἑνοιτ ανιδὁς ητις υμνἡσει κακἁ

Before the reading chairs, plenty of tiger and leopard skins lie in wait to cherish the cool feet of students, but there is nothing to trip up my own, along the long diameter of the long oval room, if sometimes the fancy seizes me to walk up and down there for hours alone, listening to the 'voices' that are not 'from without.'

At the end opposite to the oriel, I have just had placed an organ, the twin of the new one at the Music Hall, except that the faces on the pipes are beautiful, and do not look as if it hurt them to pipe. The world may be too small; but the organ cannot possibly be too large. Malibran, Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Mott usually sings to it of an evening, accompanied by Franz, Schubert, or Mendelssohn; or Beethoven drops in to play one of his symphonies. Sunday nights, Handel performs upon it regularly for a choir composed of Vaughan, Herbert, the minister who chants 'Calm on the listening ear of night,' Madame Guyon, and Sarah Adams. Between their hymns, Robertson preaches a sermon and reads from the liturgy of King's Chapel. This service is designed as a special easement to the consciences and stomachs alike of those oppressed Christians, whom modern customs and physical laws impel, of an afternoon, to be dining and digesting precisely at the hours during which their pastors are unaccountably and unjustifiably in the habit of preaching.

The books upon the shelves, last not least, are less numerous than choice. Among them still are to be found the most masterly writings of the most masterly minds in the three learned professions, and the noblest treatises on the nobler of the arts and sciences. There are many 'chronicles of eld,' which, if not true, as the Frenchman said, at any rate 'méritent bien de l'être.' There are such few fictions as bear the stamp of much individual thought, character, and observation. Especially there is a great deal of biography; for biography is the great, all-embracing epic of humanity.

Two suits of armor stand on guard, one on each side, by each well-assorted bookcase. I always think it prudent to warn my incautious visitors that these are automata, wound up and set to deal a box with their gauntleted hands on each ear of each disorderly wight who puts a book where it does not belong.

Below my library, and beyond my courtyard, is a boat in which I row myself out in warm weather to visit my friends along the coast. When I ply the oar, the crab-fishery is unproductive, droughts prevail, and I am not often upset or drowned.

In my stable are sometimes to be found, eating unmingled oats, two tame ponies, Mattapony and Poniatowski. They take my invalid acquaintance out on airings in the daytime, and my lingering guests home at a reasonable hour in the evening. The coachman thinks it is good for the horses to be out in bad weather. He loves to wash the coach. For my own use, I keep a large dapple-gray, an ex-charger of the purest blood. He has the smoothest canter and the finest mouth that I ever felt; but, with decent regard to appearances, and my private preferences, expressed or understood, he never fails to prance in a manner to strike awe and terror into all beholders, for full five minutes every time I mount him.

In the common world, I myself am, I trust, often amiable—always in some respects exemplary. In my castle, I am always all that I ought to be—all that I wish to be. I am as stately as Juno, as beautiful as Adonis, as elegant as Chesterfield, as edifying as Mrs. Chapone, as eloquent as Burke, as noble as Miss Nightingale, as perennial as the Countess of Desmond, and as robust as Dr. Windship. I also understand everything but entomology and numismatology; and if I do not understand them, the only reason is that, as the dear little boys say, 'I doe want to.'

The blossom-end of the day I keep to myself in my castle. I spend all the mornings alone in the library writing—calamo currente, like one of the heroines of the author of 'Ohone'—the most admirable romances and poems of the age. People very seldom call to see me. When they do, they go away again directly on hearing that I am engaged, without as much as sending in a message. My porter has Fortunatus's purse, and is giving discreet largesses, in collusion with the agent of the Provident Association, to the less opulent of the beggars who apply for my pecuniary aid, while I am providing above for the wants of those who crave my higher wealth. So that really the only drawback to the pleasure enjoyed by me at such times, is the idea of the frightful quarrels which must arise, as soon as I put anything to the press, between the booksellers, who stand ready to contend with one another for the honor of publishing it. The very first novel I ever completed led to a duel between the Montague and Capulet of the trade, in which each party must have lost his life but for the strenuous interposition of Noah Worcester. The fear of a repetition of that scene is all which withholds me from more frequently answering the importunate calls of the public to appear before them. Matters were simultaneously almost as bad between Birket Foster and Darley. But I made a compromise there, by promising that, the next time I got out an edition, I would get out another, and that of the two each artist should illustrate one. Each eagerly agreed to this arrangement, naturally feeling sure that such a comparison would forever establish his own superiority.

Did I say there was but one drawback to my pleasure? There is one more. It is the idea of the monotonous uniformity with which the Reviews will eulogize me. They cannot say a word of commendation beyond what is strictly true, I am fully aware; and I am not obliged to read any more of it than I please. Still it may appear extravagant to the very few yet unacquainted with the merits of my works.

Of an evening I am usually at home to visitors; and three times every winter I give the young people a ball. It breaks up at twelve. I provide none but the lightest wines. Nor do I encourage the 'round dances.' I really cannot. Those who do not think it right to join in them would either do so against their consciences, or feel left out and forlorn; pretty girls would get overheated, tumbled, and torn, and carry about the marks of black arms on their delicate waists; and youths, unsurpassed in the natural nobleness of their port and presence, would make ridiculous faces in their well-founded anxiety lest they should lose the time or meet with collisions. But I give them, to make such amends as I can, plenty of room, pure air, neither hot nor cold, and flowers in abundance. Soyer furnishes their supper; Strauss and Labitzky play for them; and they are in a measure consoled for their privations by seeing and hearing how uncommonly handsome they look to the end of the evening. The only qualifications I require for admission to the entertainment are, that the candidates shall be generally acquainted with one another, respectable in character, tasteful in dress, happy and kind in their looks, and well-mannered enough to show that they have assembled to give and receive as much innocent pleasure as they can.

Good talkers and good listeners only are invited to my dinner parties. I give one every Wednesday. It is a pleasant thing to look forward to through the first half of the week, and to look back upon through the last.

My cook likes it. She is the complement to the unhappy gentleman who had 'the temperament of genius without genius.' She has the genius without the temperament.

Part of my waiters are the attendant hands formerly engaged in the service of the White Cat. They are always gloved, and never spill nor break anything. Others, who are dumb, carry everything needed safely to and fro between table and kitchen.

The walls of my dining room are hung with portraits of all of my presentable ancestors, from the time of Apelles down to that of Copley. There are not too many of them to leave room for some Dutch paintings of fruit, game, and green-grocers' shops, for whets to the hunger.

My responsibility, with regard to the banquet, begins and ends with seeing, as I never fail to do, that each of the banqueters has a generally agreeable and peculiarly congenial companion. As for myself, I maintain that a host has his privileges; and I always place the Reverend Sydney Smith very near my right hand. On my left, I enjoy a variety. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table is sometimes so kind as to grace that corner of my dinner table. So is a gentleman who was once two years before the mast as an uncommon sailor; and so is Sir Lainful, and a child from a neighboring college town, whose society is better than that of most men.

Nothing is more promotive of digestion than laughter. I regret that my experience does not enable me to speak quite so favorably of choking. By means of the latter, my bright career was, on the very first of this series of festivities, nearly brought to a premature close. But as upon that occasion it was impossible for me to stop laughing, so likewise was it impossible for me to stop living. Some sort of action of the lungs was kept up, and complete asphyxia prevented; and, having smiled myself nearly to death, I smiled myself back to life again. Ever since, my convives, apprised of this mortal frailty of mine, time their remarks more prudently, and allow me to take alternately a joke and a morsel.

Sir Walter Scott always sits at the farther end of the table. He is the best talker that I ever heard, but not so good for dinner as he is for luncheon, because what he says is too interesting, and takes away one's appetite; nor for supper either, because he makes one dream. I always contrive that the more plethoric of my guests shall take their seats near him.

I could never be tired of Macaulay; but he contradicts people, and once made two ladies cry. They were introduced to me by an author to whom I owe much enjoyment, Miss Wetherell, of the State of New York. One was the bride of the Reverend John Humphreys, and the other Mrs. Guy Carleton. To be sure, I did not see why they should cry—unless from habit; but still, he ought not to have made them.

After dinner, those who show no signs of having talked themselves out, are rewarded and encouraged by being privately invited to prolong their stay, and meet a few other guests in the library.

Shakspeare always appears there among the first, collected and calm, but whether happy or not, his manner does not show. With regard both to his past and present life, his reserve is impenetrable. Like a mocking bird, he utters himself in so many different strains, that I can seldom make out which is most his own, except when he will sing one of his little lyrics; when, I must say, I never heard so sweet and rich a voice but that of Milton on such occasions, or those of Shelley's skylark and cloud. But yet, whether this voice of his own says that the heart out of which it comes is most glad or sad, I never can distinguish.

Dante comes with him, as tall, and, I think, as strong a man; but 'Pace' is still upon his lips and not upon his brow. He complains that heaven is a melancholy place to him. He has become better acquainted with Beatrice, and finds her not more beautiful than the rest of the angels, and otherwise rather a commonplace spirit.

To Goethe I usually have myself excused. To borrow a little slang from the critics, he 'draws' uncommonly well, especially when he draws portraits. But I do not care to have my eye trained much by an artist who has such an infirmity of color that he does not know black from white.

Schiller meets with many a welcome, and rarely a heartier one than when he brings his Wilhelm Tell or Jungfrau. I should be glad to ask some of those who are more intimate with him than I am, whether he is not a good deal like three wise men, whose plays Socrates and I used to go to see performed at Athens, two or three thousand years ago, when I was there. Further, I should be glad to ask whether it would not be better if, in one respect, he were more like them still. As he at least has seemed to me to do, they threw the strength of their invention into two or three impersonations; but as he sometimes does, they always—to steal a term from the nearest grocery—lumped all the merely necessary and accessary people, and called them simply 'Chorus.' Thus the wise men's ingenuities and our memories were spared the trouble of assigning and remembering a host of insignificant names; and there was no looking back to the dramatis personæ, or dramatos prosopa, as we called them then, to find out who was who.

A Government officer sometimes reports himself at my gates from Rydal, with a washing tub of ink on castors, which he pushes about with him wherever he goes, and in which, as in a Claude-Lorraine mirror, he contemplates everything that he can both on earth and above. He is constantly employed in fishing in it with a quill for ideas; and as often as he catches one, even if it is half drowned, my door-keeper opens to him.

Lady Geraldine was one of my most constant guests of an evening. But after her courtship and marriage, she was too apt to bring in her husband. I received him cordially enough two or three times, particularly when he came with 'the good news from Ghent.' But on other occasions his conversation was so far from agreeable, so unintelligible, or, 'not to put too fine a point upon it,' unedifying, that at last my porter was obliged to hand him out for immediate chastisement.[5] He never came again. I do not quite see why not; for, if others are willing to take pains for his good, he certainly should be no less so.

Mrs. Stowe does honor to one of the most honorable places in the assembly—her head crowned with an everlasting glory by the spirit of Uncle Tom.

Poor Charlotte Bronté is always present. She looks happy at last, with a happiness that is not of this world; and if her laurels are but earthly laurels, I often fancy that in the hand which smoothed her sisters' deathbeds, I can discern a heavenly palm. There are not many secular writers whom I would not turn away, if need were, to make room for her. If I do not always admire her characters, I do her mind. I do not altogether like her stories; but I want words to express my appreciation of the way in which she tells them.

I may state in this place, as well as in any, that—an enlightened conservative in all things—I always hold myself in readiness to receive, with marked distinction, intellectual women, who 'keep to their sphere,' such as Miss Mitchell, whose sphere is the celestial globe, Miss Austin, whose sphere is the beau monde, and Miss Blackwell, whose sphere is the pill.

Cromwell, or Frederick the Great either, would have secured a standing invitation for Carlyle, I dare say; but it is impossible for me to overlook his present state of politics. I have little doubt that it fell upon him as a Nemesis, in the first place for writing bad English, and secondly for daring to 'damn with faint praise' the loyal, generous, joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la Motte-Fouqué, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I were not afraid of his being affronted by the mischievous humor of Cervantes.

For Cervantes will make his way in now and then. It is impossible utterly to banish so much originality, elegance, and grace as his, even if the fun which accompanies them is sometimes too broad; and, when he comes to see me, he is always on his very best behavior. Sir Thomas Browne came once; but I thought he talked too much about himself; and scarcely anybody seemed to know him.

Hazlitt brought me a letter of introduction from the Emperor Napoleon. I was not inclined to think much of either of them; but I knew Hazlitt was a friend of Lamb's; and I have a regard for Lamb, on account of his regard for his sister. So my porter asked Mr. Hazlitt to walk in; and so Mr. Hazlitt did. Presently I heard him say, in an aside to Mrs. Jameson, that women were usually very stupid; if not by nature, by education and principle. The next time he called I happened to be rather particularly engaged in writing a review of him. Nobody ever heard him say anything afterward.

Of course, I single out merely a few even of the 'representative men and women' among my guests, and conveniences and luxuries in my establishment. If I told over the tithe of them, I should become diffuse; but if there is any one thing for which, more than for any other thing, my writings are remarkable, that one thing [6] is a thrice-condensed conciseness—in my castle in the air.

THE DEVIL'S CAÑON IN CALIFORNIA.

This wonderful ravine is more generally known under the name of the Geysers of California, an ambitious misnomer, which associates it with the grand Geysers of Iceland, and has given rise to erroneous ideas in regard to the nature and action of the springs it contains.

The prevalent idea of a geyser is a hot fountain, sometimes quiescent, but at others rising in turbulent eruption. The mere existence of a hot spring does not imply a 'geyser,' for, if such were the case, their number would be very great, hot springs in many parts of the world being frequent if not general accompaniments of volcanic action. Unquestionably, the Geysers of Iceland, the 'Strokr,' and the spring of the Devil's Cañon, the 'Witches' Caldron', are the results of volcanic action; but that action differs essentially in its operation. The 'Strokr' and the 'Great Geyser' are intermittent, and are accounted for by the siphon theory: the 'Witches' Caldron' is always full and boiling, and no difference is seen in it from one year's end to another.

It is not, moreover, a fountain, but a basin in the hillside, in which a black and muddy spring is always bubbling without overflowing.

The great eruptions of the Icelandic Geysers are, it has been observed, accounted for by the siphon theory; in other words, this theory supposes the existence of a chamber in the heated earth, not quite full of water, and communicating with the upper air by means of a pipe, whose lower orifice is at the side of the cavern and below the surface of the water. The water, being kept boiling by the intense heat, generates steam, which soon accumulates such force as to discharge the contents of the pond into the air through the narrow vent, or, at least enough to allow of the escape of the superfluous steam. In the Great Geyser of Iceland this eruption occurs with tremendous power, lasting only a few moments, when, all the volume of water falling back into the pool, it sinks much below its ordinary level, and remains quiescent for several days, until a fresh creation of steam repeats the phenomenon.

'The Witches' Caldron,' which is the 'Great Geyser' of California, on the contrary, never rises into the air; the subterranean pond of which it is the safety valve, may be considered to rise in it, as in a pipe, to the surface. It is not necessary to suppose a siphon; a straight pipe, communicating with the air, will account for all that is peculiar to this hot spring.

Before attempting to describe the wonders of the 'Devil's Cañon,' it may be well to give some account of the Geysers of Iceland, to render this essential difference in character the more striking, especially as numerous theories, professing to account for the Californian phenomena, have been propounded by the people of that State, none of which are thoroughly satisfactory to any one who has examined them attentively.

The following is taken from 'Letters from High Latitudes,' which appeared in 1861, and is only one of many accounts by Iceland travellers. Those interested in these matters will derive much information from the sketches of Mr. J. Ross Browne, which have had many readers through Harper's Magazine. We quote:

'I do not know that I can give you a better notion of the appearance of the place than by saying that it looked as if for about a quarter of a mile the ground had been honey-combed by disease into numerous sores and orifices; not a blade of grass grew on its hot, inflamed surface, which consisted of unwholesome-looking, red, livid clay, or crumbled shreds and shards of slough-like incrustations. Naturally enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to scamper off to the Great Geyser. As it lay at the farthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to reach it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boiling water and scalding quagmires of soft clay that intervened, and consequently arrived on the spot with our ankles nicely poulticed. But the occasion justified our eagerness.

'A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diameter and four feet deep, wide at the bottom, as in washing basins on board a steamer, stood before us, brimful of water just upon the simmer; while up into the air above our heads rose a great column of vapor, looking as if it was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground above the brim was composed of layers of incrusted silica like the outside of an oyster shell, sloping gently down on all sides from the edge of the basin.

'As the baggage train with our tents and beds had not yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated to so dry a night; and having eaten everything we could lay hands on, we sat quietly down to chess, and coffee brewed in geyser water; when suddenly it seemed as if beneath our very feet a quantity of subterranean cannon were going off: the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, starting to his feet, upset the chess board (I was just beginning to get the best of the game), and started off at full speed toward the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and troubled the water. Irritated by this false alarm, we determined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the Strokr.

'The Strokr—or the Churn—you must know, is an unfortunate geyser, with so little command over his temper and his stomach that you can get a rise out of him whenever you like. All that is necessary is to collect a quantity of sods, and throw them down his funnel. As he has no basin to protect him from these liberties, you can approach to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in diameter, and look down at the boiling water, which is perpetually seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf you have administered begins to disagree with him; he works himself up into an awful passion—tormented by the qualms of incipient sickness; he groans and hisses, and boils up and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and half digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that long after all foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and spluttering, until, at last, nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den. Put into the highest spirits by the success of this performance, we turned to examine the remaining springs. I do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of any particular mention. They all resemble in character the two I have described, the only difference being that they are infinitely smaller, and of much less power and importance.

'As our principal object in coming so far was to see an eruption of the Great Geyser, it was of course necessary to wait his pleasure; in fact, our movements entirely depended upon his. For the next two or three days, therefore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, we patiently kept watch, but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us the slightest manifestation of his latent energies. Two or three times the cannonading we heard immediately after our arrival recommenced—and once an eruption to the height of about ten feet occurred; but so brief was its duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over; as after every effort of the fountain, the water in the basin mysteriously ebbed back into the funnel. This performance, though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down its scalded gullet. In an hour afterward the basin was brimful as ever.

'On the morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made us start to our feet, and with one common impulse rush toward the basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten feet—then burst and fell; immediately after which a shining liquid column, or rather sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapor, sprang into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters faltered—drooped—fell, 'like a broken purpose,' back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recesses of their pipe.

'The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can give an idea of its most striking features. The enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power, the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapor, rolling out in exhaustless profusion—all combined to make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movement.

'And yet I do not believe that the exhibition was so fine as some that have been seen: from the first burst upward to the moment the last jet retreated into the pipe, was no more than a space of seven or eight minutes, and at no moment did the crown of the column reach higher than sixty or seventy feet above the surface of the basin. Now early travellers talk of three hundred feet, which must, of course, be fabulous; but many trustworthy persons have judged the eruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticated accounts—when the elevation of the jet has been actually measured—make it to have attained a height of upward of one hundred feet.'

Such are the peculiar characteristics of the Geysers of Iceland, differing in almost every essential point from the hot springs, so called, in California. We propose to show that the phenomena of the Devil's Cañon appear in other parts of the world in connection with some known volcano, which has at some period in history been in active operation, and that there is strong reason to believe that they can be explained by the sinking of cold water into the earth, in a country rich in salts and minerals, and encountering a volcanic focus, from which the water is discharged hot and strongly impregnated with the salts through which it has passed. It was Humboldt's opinion that hot springs generally originated thus, for he says in 'Kosmos':

'A very striking proof of the origin of hot springs by the sinking of cold meteoric water into the earth, and by its contact with a volcanic focus, is afforded by the volcano of Jorullo. When, in September, 1759, Jorullo was suddenly elevated into a mountain eleven hundred and eighty-three feet above the surrounding plain, two small rivers, the Rio de Cuitimba and the Rio de San Pedro, disappeared, and some time afterward burst forth again during violent shocks of an earthquake, as hot springs, whose temperature I found, in 1803, to be 186.4° Fahr.'

The most marked characteristics of the springs of the Devil's Cañon are, the small space in which they are all contained; the profusion and variety of mineral salts, and the proximity of different minerals, almost flowing into each other, but never mingling; the number and different forces of the steam jets on every side; and the remarkable appearance of the soil.

The approach to the Devil's Cañon is through a section of country bearing evident traces of volcanic action, and rich in mineral springs, of which the most important are those of the Napa Valley. First among these, at the greatest distance from the volcano (if we may be allowed to call it so), is the soda spring of Napa, a cold spring, greatly resembling in flavor the water of the Congress Spring at Saratoga. Passing up the Napa Valley, we find a tepid sulphur spring near St. Hellon's, known as the 'White Sulphur Spring,' being strongly impregnated with that mineral, and tasting much like the famous 'White Sulphur' of Virginia. Its waters, however, are slightly warm, and, although stronger than those of the 'Warm Springs' of the Blue Ridge, a basin as clear and buoyant as that could easily be made.

This spring is owned by Mr. Alstrom, of the Lick House, at San Francisco, and, being in a charming valley, is fast becoming the most popular watering place on the Pacific coast. About twelve miles beyond the Sulphur Springs are the 'Hot Springs,' which resemble the description just given of the Icelandic Geysers—the little geysera—there being the same quaking bog around them, which emits steam to the tread, and the surface being scabby, like an old salt meadow under a midsummer sun. These waters are scalding hot, but are pure, excepting a trace of iron. If they have been analyzed, the writer has not seen the results.

The Devil's Cañon lies about fifteen miles beyond the Hot Springs, and in the heart of a wild, mountainous country, difficult of access, and barren of vegetation, except of the most hardy character, such as the manzanita and Californian oak. Molten mercury, pure and rich, is found in the crevices of the rocks. Quartz and basalt are freely met with, and on Geyser Peak disintegrating lava.

Here the road attains an elevation of three thousand feet, and on either hand are broad and fertile valleys, with rivers winding through them, the Russian River valley and the Napa being the most beautiful beneath, while before us are gorges and barren hills, that rise above each other in picturesque confusion.

The first view of the Devil's Cañon is obtained from one of these desolate hills. At our very feet, fully two thousand feet below, seemingly a sheer descent, rises a little column of smoke or vapor, and the opposing hills, which rise abruptly to the height of a thousand feet, seem cleft by a narrow chasm, the sides of which and the neighboring hillside seem to have been burnt over by fire, and baked of many colors, like the neighborhood of an old brick kiln. Any one who has seen the island of St. Helena will at once recognize it as the same phenomenon which is famous in the 'Hangings,' the blasted precipice by the side of Longwood Farm, overhanging the valley which Napoleon chose for his last resting place. This striking similarity is all the more worthy of note from its occurring there in a purely volcanic island, every inch of which is decomposed or crumbling lava or lava rock. At the 'Hangings' the soil has the appearance of having been slowly roasted, long after the central fires which produced the island had lost their energy.

Descending the mountain we find ourselves on the brink of a precipice, overhanging a turbulent stream about two hundred feet below, and facing the ravine or cañon, which contains these wonders, and which is smoking incessantly throughout its entire length.

Just at this commanding point a hotel has been erected, from the portico of which in the early morning we can watch the grand columns of vapor opposite, before they are shorn of a portion of their splendor by the rising sun.

It is possible to walk the entire length of the ravine, surrounded by jets of steam, and little bubbling springs of mineral water; some hissing, some sputtering, others roaring, and others shrieking; the ground being soft and hot, your stick sinking into the clayey ooze, and a puff of spiteful steam following it as withdrawn; your shoes white or yellow, as you tread the chalk or the sulphur banks, and your feet burning with the hot breath of the sulphur blasts below.

If you are not stifled by the sulphur fumes above, be thankful; and when at last you reach the 'Mountain of Fire' at the head of the ravine, and look back upon the perils of your upward journey, you think of poor Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Bunyan in his dreams never imagined a more horrible place.

It is a vale of wonders—Nature's laboratory, where chemistry is to be studied. The name and number of the springs is 'legion,' Hot Sulphur, Warm Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, White Sulphur, Alum, Salt, and nobody knows all the mineral compounds. You may stand with one foot in a cold bath and another in a hot one—if you can. With one hand you may dip up alum water, as bitter and pure as chemistry can compound it, and with the other sulphur water, that shall sicken your very soul. If you have rheumatism, bathe in the splendid sulphur baths or the Indian Spring; if your eyes are weak, use the eye-water, which beats any ever charmed by magical incantations.

In the midst of this ravine, into which so many springs are emptying themselves, is a little stream, which, starting from the head of the cañon quite cool and pure, receives all their mingled waters, and gradually increases in heat and abominable taste, until at last it defies description.

Its stones and the rocks that line its banks, owing probably to the protection of the cooler water, are tolerably firm in texture, all other parts of the ravine being burned to a powder which crumbles in the hand, or, when mixed with water, forms an ooze or clay. Many of these stones by the sides of this little stream are banded with colors like the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior (to compare great things with small), and probably from the same cause. These beautiful cliffs, the Schwee-archibi-kung of the Indians, are colored by percolations of surface-water, by which the coloring matter of various minerals and acids is brought to the face of the precipice, and it is reasonable to suppose that the drainage of the mountains behind the Devil's Cañon, sinking to similar beds of minerals, is thrown out by the volcano below in the shape of steam or mineral springs. It is impossible to drill a hole two feet deep in the side of the ravine without provoking a little jet of steam. Now, Daubeny, who is the highest authority on volcanoes, states that the greater part of their ascending vapor is mere steam, and that in 'Pantellaria (a volcanic island near Sicily) steam issues from many parts of this insular mountain, and hot springs gush forth from it which form together a lake six thousand feet in circumference.'

Similar jets of steam and hot water are observed at St. Lucia, near the crater Oalibou, where also there is a continual formation of sulphur from the condensation of the vapors, a phenomenon which is lavishly displayed in the Devil's Cañon, and in fact around most known volcanoes. The writer observed it fully two miles from the active volcano of Kilawea, forming a fine sulphur bed, and a body of steam so dense that rheumatic natives of Hawaii were in the habit of using it as a vapor bath.

The jets of steam in the cañon are of the most curious variety. One, honored by the name of the 'Devil's Steamboat,' is quite a formidable affair, high up on the hillside, and puffing uninterruptedly, and so powerfully that the steam is invisible for at least five feet from the vent. The ground about it is too soft to permit approach, and the heat too great to tempt it. On a frosty morning, just before sunrise, it is a fine sight. This, however, is only one of hundreds. It would be imagined that if they all came from the same source, they would puff in some sort of unison—that the beatings of the mighty heart below would be felt simultaneously in every pulse; but the fact is quite the reverse. No tune or concord is preserved by any two in the cañon; one moves with the quiet regularity of respiration, while the next is puffing with the nervous anxiety of a little high-pressure tug boat. It affords endless amusement to listen to their endless variety of complaint; some are restless, some spiteful, and some angry, while others sound as merrily as a teakettle, or beat a jolly 'rub-a-dub,' 'rataplan,' that makes a man's soul merry to hear. In fact, there is a little retreat just out of the cañon, styled the Devil's Kitchen, where the pot and the saucepan, the gridiron and the teakettle are visible to men gifted with imaginations strong enough to grasp the unseen.

The great feature of the cañon, which has given it the unmerited name of 'Geyser,' is the Witches' Caldron, a small cavity in the hillside, seemingly running back into the hill at an angle of forty-five degrees, filled with villanous black mud in unceasing commotion.

How different from the pellucid basin of the Great Geyser! Lord Dufferin tells us that he 'brewed his coffee in the Geyser water.'

The mud boils like the angry lava-waves of a volcano; it is always of a very high temperature, and occasionally runs over the rim of the basin, but never rises violently into the air. It looks like black sulphur (bitumen), and has a brimstone smell. Certainly it is a diabolical pit, and worth coming far to see, but it shows none of the phenomena which tempt travellers to Iceland.

It more closely resembles the salses or mud volcanoes of Central and South America, and is a phenomenon very common on the sides of volcanoes. As far back as the time of Pliny it was observed that 'in Sicily eruptions of wet mud precede the glowing (lava) stream.'

Humboldt recognizes in the 'salses, or small mud volcanoes, a transition from the changing phenomena presented by the eruptions of vapor and thermal springs, to the more powerful and awful activity of the streams of lava that flow from volcanic mountains.'

Although the recent discovery of the Devil's Cañon in California makes it impossible to say at what time, if ever, this smothered volcano may have been more active, we have accounts of analogous phenomena in Central America and San Salvador, in the Ausoles of Ahuachapan, near the volcano of Izalco, which were described in 1576 by Licenciado Palacio, and also in what was called the 'Infernillo,' on the side of the volcano of San Vicente, which was mentioned by the Spanish Conquistadores. We also know something of the subsequent history of these volcanoes; for M. Arago has remarked that

'The volcano of Izalco is extremely active. Among its eruptions may be cited those of 1798, 1805, 1807, and 1825. On the occasion of the last eruption the course of the river Tequisquillo was altered to the extent of several kilomètres.'

Also:

'The volcano of San Vicente, called also Sacatecoluca, was distinguished in 1643 by a very violent eruption which covered all the surrounding country with ashes and sulphur. In January, 1835, a new eruption of this volcano destroyed many towns and villages.'

Now let us see what old Palacio says of the springs on the side of this fearful volcano of Izalco:

'The springs, which the Indians call 'Hell,' are all within the space of a gunshot across, and each makes a different noise. One imitates the sound of a fuller's mill; another that of a forge, and a third a man snoring. The water in some is turbid; in some clear; in others red, yellow, and various colors. They all leave deposits of corresponding colors. Collectively the springs form the Rio Caliente, running underground for a quarter of a league, and so hot on reaching the surface as to take the skin off a man's feet. Double the range of a musket shot from these springs are others, which flow from a rock fifteen feet long by nine feet broad, split in the centre, sending out with water columns of smoke and steam, with a fearful sound, distinguishable for half a league.'

A later visitor has given an account of the same springs, which may be thus condensed:

'Not far from Apaneca and in the vicinity of the town of Ahuachapan, are some remarkable thermal springs, called Ausoles. They emit a dense white steam from a semi-fluid mass of mud and water in a state of ebullition, which continually throws off large and heavy bubbles. [The mud bubbles of the Witches' Caldron are quite as extraordinary.] They occupy a considerable space, the largest not less than one hundred yards in circumference. In this one the water is exceedingly turbid, of a light brown color, and boils furiously. The waters in the other caldrons vary in color, and form deposits of the finest clay of every shade. Steam ascends in a dense white cloud, shutting out the sun; the ground is all hot, soon becoming insupportable. In places a little jet of steam and smoke rises fiercely from a hole in the hills, while in others boiling water rushes out as if forced from a steam engine. The water possesses varying mineral qualities.

'All these springs are on the side of the volcano Apaneca, one of a cluster of which Izalco is the most active, and Santa Anna the mother volcano.'

These accounts would be equally correct if applied to the Devil's Cañon; but the following appears to surpass it in the power of the volcano below. It is condensed from a description by the same traveller, whose name cannot be ascertained:

'On the north side of the volcano of San Vicente (a water volcano occupying the geographical centre of San Salvador, seven thousand feet above the sea), at the head of a considerable ravine, and near the base of the mountain, is a place called 'El Infernillo.'

'For the space of several hundred yards, rills of hot water spring from the ground, which looks red and burned, and there are numerous orifices sending out spires of steam with a fierce vigor like the escape of a steam engine. The principal discharge is from an orifice thirty feet broad, opening beneath a ledge of igneous rocks, nearly on a level with the bottom of the ravine. Smoke, steam, and hot water are sent out with incredible velocity for a distance of forty yards, as if from a force pump, with a roar as of a furnace in full blast. The noise is intermittent (although never ceasing entirely) and as regular as respiration. All around are salts, crystallized sulphur, and deposits of clay of every shade. There is no vegetation in the vicinity, and the stream for a mile is too hot for the hand to bear.'

Such a striking similarity in phenomena at so great a distance apart, in connection with active or dormant volcanoes, would seem to be enough to prove the connection in any candid mind, and utterly refute the idle theory that all this heat may be produced by the chemical action of water on beds of sulphates or phosphates just below the surface. The temperature of the water should be sufficient to show that it comes from great depths. The writer was unable, from want of a thermometer, to verify the temperatures of the various springs in the Devil's Cañon, but was told that they average 201°, and as most of them were boiling, it appeared not to be far from the truth. Since Arago discovered, in 1821, that the deepest artesian wells were the hottest, it has been observed that the hottest springs are the purest; and from their geological surroundings, many are proved to come from great depths. The Aguas Calientes de las Trincheras, near Puerto Cabello, issue from granite, at a temperature of 206°; the Aguas de Comaugillas, near Guanaxuato, from basalt, at 205°. To more fully establish the volcanic origin of the phenomena of California and Central America, if such a thing were necessary, it can, however, be shown that similar phenomena are found around the crater of a volcano in actual eruption.

A graphic account of 'White Island,' in the South Pacific, from the pen of Captain Cracroft, R. N., who visited it with the Governor of New Zealand, in H. M. S. Niger, speaks of boiling springs, 'geysers,' and steam-escapes, in connection with a very remarkable active volcano.

As very few are acquainted with this singular island, his description of his visit is given in full:

'Sunday, January 15, 1862.

'This morning we were well inside the Bay of Plenty, and as the wind declined to a calm, I got steam up, and stood for White Island, on which there is a volcano in active operation. The white cloud of smoke that always hovers over it was in sight before eight o'clock, in shape like a huge palm tree, and at eleven o'clock, H. E., the governor, gladly accompanied me ashore, with all the officers of the ship that could be spared from duty.

'As we approached the island, its aspect was of the most singular and forbidding description. Except on its northern face, to which the sulphurous vapor does not appear to reach, it is utterly destitute of vegetation: here and there are a few patches of underwood; but in every other direction the island is bald, bleak, and furrowed into countless deep-worn ravines. The centre of the island has been hollowed out by the crater of the volcano into a capacious basin, almost circular, and, excepting to the south, where there is a huge cleft or rent, its sides or edges rise almost perpendicular full eight hundred feet from the base. After some trouble, carefully backing in with the swell, a landing was effected on the south side, when a most extraordinary sight was displayed to our view. Before us, in the hollow of the basin, was a lake of yellow liquid, smoking hot, about a hundred yards in diameter, as near as could be guessed. Around this, but chiefly toward the north side, were numerous jets of steam spouting out of the ground. A strong sulphurous smell pervaded the atmosphere, and warned us what was to be expected from a nearer proximity to the crater in active operation at the farther end of the lake, to which, nothing daunted by its appearance, our party was determined to penetrate. Our advance was made cautiously; the surface of the ground was in some places soft and yielding, and we knew not to what brimstone depths an unwary step might sink us. There were little ravines to be crossed, which had to be first carefully sounded. As we proceeded on the soft, crustaceous surface, diminutive spouts of vapor would spit forth, as if to resent our intrusion. In skirting the edge of the lake, its temperature and taste were both tested; the former varied with the distance from the seething bubbling going on at the extremity; in some places the hand could be kept in, but 130° was the highest registered, without risk to the thermometer, by Mr. Lawrenson, assistant surgeon: the taste may be imagined, but not described!

'Continuing our advance, the roaring and hissing became louder and louder, as though a hundred locomotives were all blowing off together, while the steam from the crater and numerous geysers surrounding it was emitted in huge volumes, ascending full two thousand feet in the air. Most fortunately it was a perfect calm, or the fumes of the sulphur would alone have sufficed to stop our progress; but there was also every reason to believe, judging from the description I have by me of a former visit, that the volcano was to-day in a more quiescent state than usual. Everywhere sulphur was strewed around, and we had only to enlarge any of the vapor holes to obtain it in its pure crystallized state. We were now within a few yards of the crater—huge bubbles of boiling mud were rising several feet from the surface of the lake—the heat and sulphurous vapor were almost insupportable; it was evident that no animal life could long exist here. But before leaving this caldron, one of the mids, more venturous than the rest, climbed up a small, semi-detached hill, and his example being followed, we beheld a scene that beggars all description. In full activity a roaring fountain shot up into the scorching atmosphere: we deemed this to be molten sulphur, but no flame was visible in the daylight; stones were thrown in, but they were projected into the air as high as the ship's mast-heads. It was a sight never to be forgotten; and we retraced our steps to the boats with the satisfaction of having been permitted to make a closer examination of this grand natural curiosity than any previous visitor. We saw no indication of either animal or insect life, and it is not likely that any can exist on this island. On the beach, which was composed of large bowlders, lay the bones of an enormous whale, and a couple of whale birds hovered round the boats as they pulled back to the ship.'

Here we have an account agreeing in every respect, as far as it goes, with the appearance of the desolate valley known as 'Geyser Cañon,' the same 'burnt-out' look of the land, the same jets of steam, large and small, and boiling caldrons of mud.

'The surface of the soil was soft and yielding,' according to the gallant captain, and the punching of a stick called out spiteful little jets of steam. It is to be regretted, however, that the observant officer does not acquaint us with the taste of the waters. Probably one swallow was enough for him, if it was sulphur water; and he does not even tell us that, so that it is impossible to say whether the numerous kinds of salts noticed in California are to be traced here. His testimony is explicit that these 'geysers' occur on the sides of a great volcano.[7]

Thus, in conclusion, it will be seen how a comparison of all the phenomena occurring in the 'Devil's Cañon'—where, without any other positive proof, we suspect the existence of a deep-seated volcano—with similar thermal springs and jets of steam on the sides of known volcanoes, in many and distant parts of the world, either now or at some recorded time in active operation, drives us irresistibly to the inference that the so-called 'Geysers' are of similar origin, and only another manifestation of the dormant energies of the interior of our globe; now bursting out in lava flames, as on Hecla or Vesuvius, and now mildly presenting us with a tepid bath.

As to the name of geyser being applied to the Californian phenomena, we protest against it. A true geyser is a natural hydraulic machine of magnificent power; it is a spring, to be sure, but a mineral spring is not necessarily a geyser, and there is as much difference between the 'Geysers of California' and the Strokr or the 'Great Geyser,' as there is between a squib and a musket-shot. Call the springs Ausoles, if you please, like their counterparts of Ahuachapan, or 'give the devil his due,' and call the place as it was called by its discoverer.

The Devil's Cañon is not a bad name for such a diabolical, sulphurous, hot, and altogether infernal den.

FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER.

PART I.—SCALES.

We were in the three-months.

There! I feel as proud of that as one of the Old Guard would have been in saying: 'I was of the Army of Italy.'

There is but one three-months (pronounced with the accent strongly resting on the numeral adverb, after the Hibernian). All others are spurious imitations. I refer to the early days of the war: the dark days that followed the first fall of Sumter, when our Southern friends had just finished the last volume of the lexicon of slavery, that for so long a time had defined away our manhood, our national honor, and our birthright of freedom, with such terrible words as 'coercion,' 'secession,' 'fratricidal war,' 'sovereign States,' and what not; before we had begun to look without fear even at the title page of the new Gospel of Liberty: the days when we were mudsills and greasy mechanics, whose pockets were to be touched: the days, in short, when we were still inclined to crawl upon our bellies, from the preference arising out of long and strong habit. Then, you remember, the rebellion was to be crushed in sixty days. So the President issued his proclamation, of date the 15th of April, A. D. 1861 (and of the independence of the United States the first), calling out SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND men for ninety days to do it.

On the same day we were mustered into the service as a part of this gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. After it we were Company N, commanded by Captain John H. Pipes, of the First Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Charles Diamond, as the muster rolls called us, or the 'American Sharpshooters,' as we called ourselves.

Major McDuff mustered us in. He did it after this fashion: First he walked out into the yard of the War Department, where the company stood at 'parade rest,' or the nearest militia approach thereto, waiting to be absorbed. Then he had us marched across the yard and halted; then up it; then down it; then back to the first position; then forward in a line a few paces; then, by the right flank, into the back yard, where he left, us, at a 'rest,' for two hours and fifty-three minutes, while he retired into the War Department building, probably to ascertain if the thing was regular. Then, at the fifty-fourth minute, or thereabout, after the second hour, he caused us to be marched into our original position. After gazing at us uneasily for a few minutes, he proceeded to inspect our arms with the utmost care: the importance of which manœuvre will more fully appear from the fact that they intended to take us, and did take many of us, sans lock, stock, or barrel. Then he told us that we were—called into the—service—of the—United States—for—three months—to serve in the District—not to go beyond the District—under any circumstances. Then he called the roll, so accurately (never having seen it before) that nearly all of us recognized our names, and in hardly more than two and three quarters the time it would have taken the orderly sergeant to do it. Then we were told to hold up our right hands, and a stout party, well known to all early volunteers, stepped forward from wherever he had been before, and, introducing himself by exclaiming, in solemn and cavernous tones, 'The following is the oath!' swore us in. Then, after another short adjournment of half an hour, we were marched to our barracks.

That was a queer organization, the 1st D.C. Vols., composed as it was of a cloud of independent companies—thirty-five, or thereabout, in all, I think—all made up of men from everywhere, largely in the tadpole stage of Unionism, and all sworn in for service in the District, not to go beyond the District. Early in May they were organized into eight battalions of four or five companies each, commanded by lieutenant-colonels, majors, or the senior captains. Nearly every company occupied its own separate 'armory' or barracks, and all the officers and men lived at home when not actually on guard or other duty!

It was an awful feeling that sandwiched the gaps of new-born exultation at finding ourselves real soldiers—that feeling of a merged identity; the individual Smith sold for glory at $11 per mensem, and lost, lost in an aggregate: become only a cog in a little machine connected with a larger machine that forms part of the great machine called an army. One thing saved us the full horror of this discovery: we were not bothered with corps, divisions, brigades, or even greatly with regiments, in those days, and if individually we were ciphers or merely recurring decimals, collectively 'our company' was of the first importance; and this reflection stiffened the breasts of our gray frock coats, and caused our scales (we wore scales!) to shine again.

First night. Everybody wants to be on guard! Think of that, old soldiers, and grin. The captain details twice as many as are necessary, to prevent clamor. Some of the more enthusiastic of the disappointed ones offer to stay at the armory all night, to be on hand in case of anything happening. We can never be certain about the enemy's crossing the Long Bridge, you know. The company, guard and all, is drilled vigorously, in squads, for two hours. Then the unhappy fellows who are to go home loiter themselves, with many wistful glances, out of the building. Then the guard plays euchre, reads, reads aloud, sings, fences, and drills. A few sleepy heads lie down in corners about one a.m., and are not going to sleep, but nevertheless shortly complain of being kept awake by the noise. 'Never mind,' growls the melancholy man of the company; 'won't hear any of this to-morrow night. D——d glad to go to sleep then.' The melancholy man, now as hereafter, is voted a bore, but, as I presently discover, turns out to be pretty nearly right, and achieves the sad triumph of being able to say, 'Told you so; wouldn't believe me; now see.'—Daylight. No one has been asleep, yet, strange to say, everyone has waked up and found everyone else snoring. No one waits for reveillé, this first morning. You stretch yourself, and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so down the grain, and its knots or eyes—yes, they are eyes—are so full of sand. This must be how Rip Van Winkle felt after his nap in the Catskills, you think. You wonder how those fellows Boyce and Tripp can skylark so on an empty stomach. Three hours to breakfast. You police the quarters with vigor. 'Heavens, what a dust! Open the windows, somebody; and look here, Sergeant! the floor hasn't been sprinkled.' The sharp, quick tones of the sergeant of the guard (more like the sound of a tenpenny nail scratching mahogany than aught else in nature) soon set matters right. You think you have surely swallowed your peck of dirt that morning, and feel even more gastric than you usually do on an empty stomach. You can go home to breakfast now: but you hear Johnny Todd's cheery voice sing out; 'Fall in, cocktail squad!' and march off with a score of your comrades to the nearest restaurant, which, finding just open, the squad incontinently takes possession of. You take a cocktail, a whiskey cocktail, with the edge of the green glass previously lemoned and dipped in powdered sugar. 'Ah,' says Todd to everybody, and everybody, to everybody else, including Todd, 'that goes to the right place' (slapping it affectionately). Oh, reader, if wearer of p[)a]hnts, did you ever meet with a decoction, infusion, or other mixture whatsoever, vinous, alcoholic, or maltic, with or without sugar, that did not go to the right place? And if there was a fault, wasn't it in the addition of a trifle too much lemon peel? The crowd takes another of the same sort. You take another. Then you wish you hadn't.

You go to the office that day, for, in common with two-thirds of the company, you are a clerk in one of the Departments as well as a soldier; and you can think and talk of nothing but the war. The oldsters quiz your enthusiasm unmercifully, and cause your complexion to assume a red and gobbling appearance, and your conversation to limp into half-incoherent feebleness. Nevertheless everyone is very kind to you, for you are a great pet with the old fogies—their prize 'Jack;' and even old Mr. Gruff rasps down his tones, so that those harsh accents seem to pat you on the back. Your handwriting, usually so firm and easy, quavers a little, and exhibits more of the influence of the biceps muscle than of your accustomed light play of the wrist and fingers. But, you think, it's the rifle that does it, and are rather proud of this.

Second night. You rush down after an early dinner, in rash anxiety to be drilled. Arriving very red and hot at the armory, you find bales of straw and boxes on the sidewalk in front, and hear dreadful rumors that our armory is to be taken away; that we are to have regular barracks, and live there all the time; that we are to draw rations, and cook them. Dismay is on every face. The melancholy man alone seems not to be jostled from his habitual sad composure: he explains to the inquiring, doubting crowd that the ration consists of 'one and a quarter pounds of fresh beef or three quarters of a pound of salt beef, pork, or bacon, fourteen ounces of flour or twelve ounces of hard bread, with eight pounds of coffee, ten of sugar, ten of rice or eight quarts of beans, four quarts of vinegar, four pounds of soap, one and a quarter pounds candles, and two quarts of salt, to the hundred rations. But you won't get fresh meat often, nor yet flour, and I reckon you'll have to take beans instead of rice pretty much all the time, now't South Car'lina's out.' We eat salt pork! or beans either, except very occasionally. There began to be serious symptoms of mutiny. Fippany and one or two others declaimed so violently against the outrage, that the more enthusiastic of us felt bound to use our influence to prevent the spread of a disaffection that seemed to us highly calculated to embarrass the action of the Government in this crisis. The end of it was that we marched up to our new quarters, and, in the excitement of moving in and receiving our clothing and camp and garrison equipage, had forgotten our troubles, when (just as the melancholy man discovered that the overcoats were seven short of the right number, that the mess pans all leaked, and that the quarters were full of fleas) our orders to move were countermanded, and we marched back again in joy. There were fewer volunteers for guard duty that night, and the natural rest of the sergeant of the guard was undisturbed save by the occasional nightmare of having overslept the hour for relieving the meek sentinels (not yet instructed in the art of awakening drowsy non-commissioned officers by stentorian alarms, and indeed not yet knowing accurately the measure of their 'two hours on'), or by some louder howl than usual from poor Todd second, who, having continued his course of eye-opening to the hours when sober citizens and prudent soldiers incline to close theirs, spent the major portion of the night in dramatic recitations of the beauties of Shakspeare, utterly neglecting and refusing to 'dry up,' although frequently admonished thereto by the growls and eke by the curses of his comrades.

The next afternoon and evening, including in the latter elastic term many hours more properly claimed by the night, were spent in confused and bungling attempts to issue the clothing and camp and garrison equipage considerately provided for us by the Government. First everybody opened all the boxes at once, and grabbed for everything. Then everybody put his things back and petitioned for somebody else's. 'My overcoat is too big.' 'Mine is too short.' 'Golly! what sleeves!' 'What are these bags for?' 'Those things knapsacks! how you goin' to fassen 'em? no straps!' 'My canteen has no cork.' ... 'Silence!' roars the captain, and 'Silence!' rasps the orderly sergeant, three times as loudly and six as disagreeably. And then everybody being ordered to replace everything, that a proper system of distribution may be adopted, half of us hide our plunder away, and the other half dump their prizes promiscuously and in sullenness. 'Here, here!' barks Sergeant Files; 'this kind of thing's played out. There were sixty-five canteens; where's the other sixty?' Presently the confusion unravels a little, but, after a breathing spell, begins again worse than ever, when our melancholy friend, Smallweed, having signed the clothing receipt doubtfully, presently announces, with the air of an injured martyr, that he supposes it's all right, but he can't find all the things he signed for. Then everybody frantically examines into this new difficulty, and discovers that they signed for everything, and got nothing. Poor Captain Pipes scratches his head perplexedly, and smokes in anxious puffs. Sergeant Files hustles everybody about, exposes several shamefaced impostors, who have more than everything, and by the timely announcement that Smallweed's deficiency consists of two overcoat straps, which are no longer used in the service, restores comparative quiet. Smallweed, however, retires up and shakes his head dubiously, remarking in an undertone, to a weak-eyed young man, who stands in mortal awe of him, that it may be all right, but he don't see it.

Drills, drills, drills! For the next week we have nothing but drills—except guard duty. Squad drills, company drills, drills in the facings, drills under arms, drills in the morning, noonday drills, drills at night. Besides these, the office all day, and guard duty every third night. Talk about the patriotic days of '76! you think—was there ever anything like this? In less than a week everybody is played out; everybody, that is, except a lymphatic, dull-visaged backwoodsman, named Tetter, who drags through everything so slowly and heavily, that he can't get tired, and an old Polish cavalryman, named Hrsthzschnoffski, or something of the kind, but naturally called Snuffsky, who knows neither enthusiasm nor fatigue, who never volunteers for a duty nor ever begs off from it. Growls arise. Men pale about the cheeks, beady in the forehead, and dark under the eyes, begin to collect in knotlets, and talk over the situation. 'We enlisted to fight,' the bolder spirits hint; 'we came to fight, not to drill and guard armories. Why don't they take us out and let us whip the enemy, and go back to our business?' But presently comes

The 19th of April. No drill to-night. What is that? A fight in Baltimore? Nonsense! True though, for all that, as history will vouch. Six regiments of Massachusetts troops have been attacked in Baltimore by the 'Plugs,' and cut to pieces. Where was the 'Seventh!' we wonder, educated in the creed of its invincibility and omnipresence. The Seventh was there too, and has been massacred. Colonel Lefferts is killed. There is a stir around the armory door, the knot of idlers gives way respectfully, and admits a little man, the pride of the regiment, always cool, collected, handsome, and soldierly—Colonel Diamond. He says half a dozen words in a whisper to the captain, writes three lines with a pencil on the fly leaf of an old letter, gives a comprehensive glance around, in which we feel he sees everything, salutes the captain, and marches briskly, almost noiselessly, into the street. Smallweed, the melancholy man, rolls up his blanket, packs his knapsack, combs his hair sadly, and moans out: 'Detail for the guard: Private Smallweed. I'm d——d if I stand this any longer! I'll write to——'

'Fall in men; fall in under arms; fall in lively now!' barks the orderly sergeant. 'Get up here, Snuffsky. Tetter, don't you mean to fall in at all?' and so on. Volunteers are wanted for special and perhaps dangerous service. Perhaps dangerous! (Quick movement of admiration.) 'Every man willing to go will step two paces to the front.' The company moves forward in line, much to the disgust of Sergeant Files, who finds he must make a detail after all. Lieutenant Frank, Sergeant Mullins, Corporal Bledsoe, and twenty privates are presently detailed, and, after tremendous preparation and excitement, during which Smallweed discovers that some one has stolen his percussion caps, and is incontinently cursed by Sergeant Files for his pains, march off amid the cheers of the disappointed remainder. We mourn our sad lot at being left out of the detail, when presently comes a second detail: Second Lieutenant Treadwell, Sergeant Ogle, Corporal Funk, and twenty privates, of whom you, Jenkins, are one. As you get ready, you adopt stern resolves, stiffen that upper lip, and confide a short message for some one to one of the survivors, in case, as you proudly hint, you should not return. The survivor rewards you with a pressure of the hand, and a look of wonder at your coolness.

'Support—ARMS! Quick—MARCH!' the lieutenant says, almost in a whisper, as we leave the building, and are fairly in the street. Where are we going? Why do we go down Pennsylvania Avenue? This is not the way to Long Bridge. Are the enemy attacking the navy yard? all wonder; no one speaks. 'Halt!' Why, this is the telegraph office! and we take possession of it in the name of the United States. Despatches between Baltimore and Richmond have passed over the wires that very evening, and we even interrupt one with our sword bayonets. Then we hear the truth about that Baltimore business. The Southern operators and clerks crow over and denounce us. We feel gulpy about the throat, and those of us who yet tremble at the thought of 'fratricide,' wish they were out of this, until Smallweed effects a diversion by dexterously, though quite accidentally, upsetting the longest-haired, loudest-mouthed operator into the biggest and dirtiest spittoon. But worse than this is in store for the unlucky sympathizers, for, after thinking sadly over his feat, the same melancholy Smallweed suddenly asks them what tune the Southern Confederacy will adopt as its national air. One incautious Georgian suggests 'Dixie,' he reckons. ''Spittoon,' I should think,' says Smallweed mournfully. For which he is pronounced by the same gentleman from Georgia to be a divinely condemned fool. How hungry we grew, and how pale and seedy, before the relief came at 8 a.m., with the great news that the other detail had seized the Alexandria boat!

This is the age of seizures. We seize all the steamers. We seize the railroad, A train comes in, and we seize the cars. Then there is a let up: the Confederate lexicon still at work, flashing out the last feeble jerks of its poison. We release the telegraph; we release the railway; we release the steamers. One of the latter, the George Page, goes down to Alexandria, straightway to become a ram, terrible to the weak-minded, though harmless enough in reality. Then we seize them all again, and, this time, with the railway—praised be Allah!—a train of cars! Presently a detachment, envied by the disappointed, goes out from our company on this train to reconnoitre. Communication with the great North is cut off. Every stalk of corn in all Maryland rises up, in the nightmare that seems to possess the capital, a man, nay, a 'Southron,' terrible, invincible, Yankee-hating. Will relief never come? Where are those seventy-five thousand? Where is the Seventh? Officers in mufti are known to have been sent out to Annapolis and Baltimore with orders and for news. Others arrive in Washington filled with strange and vague tidings of impending disaster. But as yet these doves have no news save of the deluge. Presently an early reveillé startles us from our beds of soft plank, and, as we fall in sleepily, fagged and exhausted in mind and body by this work, so new and so trying, we are electrified by the hoarse croak of Sergeant Files—he too is used up. 'Volunteers to go beyond the District,' step two paces t'the front—H'rch!' Four men remain in the ranks. All eyes turn to this shabby remnant, but they remain immovable, with the leaden expression belonging to the victims of the Confederate lexicon, that seems to say, unaccused, 'I am not ashamed.' These men are instantly detailed for guard duty at the armory for the next twenty-four hours.

The rest of us reach the railway station shortly after daylight, are told off into platoons, and embarked on the train which the hissing engine announces to be waiting for us. Our comrades in this adventure are Captain Hoblitzel's company, the 'Swartz-Jägers,' brawny mechanics, sturdy Teutons, and all of a size. These are Germans, remember, not what we call Hessians; not the kind that are destined to make Pennsylvania a byword; not the kind that advance in clogs but retreat in seven-league boots. We part from our German friends with a rousing cheer, as heartily returned, at a bridge which they are to guard. Then we have the cars to ourselves. Surely this is the ne plus ultra of railway travelling; free tickets and a whole seat to yourself. We are to keep our rifles out of sight, unless an emergency arises. The funny men play conductor, announcing familiar stations in unintelligible roars, and singing out 'Tickets!' importunately. This is our first real danger. There is real excitement in this. We all hope there will be a fight; all except Smallweed, who remains melancholy, according to his wont, save when a sad pun breaks the surface into a temporary ripple of quiet smiles. And so, with wild jokes, mad capers, and loudly shouted songs, we whirl along, twenty miles an hour, over bridges, through cuts, above embankments, always through danger and into danger. Hoot, toot! shrieks the engine; the breaks are rasped down; the train slowly consumes its momentum in vainly trying to stop suddenly. Silence reigns. Every man nervously, as by instinct, grasps his rifle, half cocks it, looks to the cap, and thrusts his head out of the window. A shout: 'There they are!' 'Where?' Several of the more nervous rifle barrels protrude uncertainly from the windows. 'Steady men, steady!' from the clear voice of Captain Pipes. 'I see them.' 'There they are.' 'Three of them.' 'One of them has on gray clothes, and—'

'The Seventh, by——!' rings in every ear. No matter who said it. 'The Seventh,' every throat shouts. Then such a cheer, and such another, and such another after that, and such a tiger after that, and such other cheers and such other tigers!—until the train stops, and, regardless of orders, unheeding the vain protests of the captain or the curses of the lieutenants, or the objurgations of Sergeant Files, we rush madly, pellmell, from the cars. Everybody shakes hands with the Seventh man, and with everybody else. He is thirsty: sixty odd flasks are uncorked and jammed at him. Hungry, too? The men hustle him into the cars, and almost into the barrels of pork and bread, with which we came provided in quantities sufficient, as we thought in our simplicity, for a siege, though really, as I have since found reason to believe, amounting to less than a thousand rations.

'Where is the Seventh?' 'At the Junction.' We are only a mile from the Junction. All aboard again, and we steam up to the Junction, just in time to see the leading companies file into the station, from their historical march—famous from being the first of the war, twice famous because Winthrop told its story; in time to see the Eighth Massachusetts follow our favorite heroes; in time to bring the Seventh to Washington; in time thus to terminate the dark hours of anxious suspense and doubt that followed the 19th of April and the drawing of the first blood in the streets of Baltimore.

Dulness succeeds this spurt of glory, and there is nothing more interesting than guarding the Long Bridge or a steamboat, alternating with drills, drills, drills! We are initiated into the mystery of the double quick, under knapsacks and overcoats. Men begin to be detailed on extra duty. More men are detailed on extra duty. Doctor Peacack makes his appearance. The sick list becomes an institution. It is curious to notice how the same men, detailed for guard, police, or fatigue, appear on the sick list, and, being excused by the mild Peacack, straightway reappear in the 'cocktail squad.' But a wink, as good as a nod, from the captain, and the fragrant oil of the castor bean, prescribed to be taken on the spot, soon corrects these little discrepancies. The guardhouse becomes an institution. Todd second is a frequent inmate; he will drink. Swilliams is another, who takes a drink, and becomes insane; takes another, and becomes sick; takes another, and then a quiet snooze, with his head resting on the nearest curb. We call these unfortunates 'Company Q;' a splendid joke. The captain drills us as far as 'On the right, by file, into line,' and apparently can get no farther. So we think, and that the first lieutenant kn=ows twice much as the captain. And, oh! how we come to hate Sergeant Files, and his hard, carking voice, always rasping somebody about something! We have been in service a month. The city is full of troops; the heights back are covered with camps; the 'Fire Zouaves' have introduced the Five Points to our acquaintance; General Blankhed is still giving passes to go to Richmond; the enemy's pickets stare at ours from other end of Long Bridge; nobody is hurt as yet. Presently comes an order constituting the 'American Sharpshooters,' the 'Fisler Guards,' the Union Carbineers,' the 'Seward Cadets,' and the 'Bulger Guards,' a battalion, to be known as the Ninth Battalion (did I say there were only eight? no matter) of the First Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, and to be commanded by Major Johnson Heavysterne, the beau ideal of a militia major—fat, pompous, not much acquainted with military, but, to use his own vocabulary, knowing right smart in the fish and cheese line. But let me deal kindly with the honest old soul; he meant well, but he had bad luck; and he made me, Private William Jenkins, the writer of these disjointed phrases, sergeant-major of the battalion. Whereof, kind reader, more anon: for here I left off my scales and sewed on my chevrons. (That is, she did. Please see Part II.)

THE SACRIFICE

The blood that flows for freedom is God's blood!
Who dies for man's redemption, dies with Christ!
The plan of expiation is unchanged:
And, as One died, supremely good, for all,
So one dies still, that many more may live.

So fall our saviours on the bloody field,
In deadly swamps, along the foul lagoons,
On the long march, in crowded hospitals,
Of wounds, of weariness, of pain and thirst,
Of wasting fevers and of sudden plagues,
Of pestilence, that lurks within the camp,
Of long home-sickness, and of hope deferred,
Of languishing, in hostile prisons chained—
And, with their blood, they wash the nation clean,
And furnish expiation for the sin
That those who slay them have been guilty of.

So God selects the noblest of the land:
He culls the qualities that are His own—
Our courage, patience, love of human kind,
Our strong devotion to the cause of Right,
Our noblest aspirations for the time
When every man shall stand erect and free,
Self-elevated, God-appointed king!
Knowing no equals, save his brother men;
Ruling no lieges, save his own desires;
The undisputed sovereign of himself,
Owning no higher sovereignty but God.

God culls these qualities, that are Himself—
These sparks of Deity that live in man—
And, in man's person, offers up Himself,
A long, perpetual sacrifice for sin.

This is the plan—the changeless plan of Heav'n:
The good die, that the evil may be purged;
The noble perish, that the base may live;
The free are bound, that slaves may break their bonds;
Those who have happy homes are self-exiled,
That other exiles may have happy homes;
The bravest sons of Freedom's land are slain,
That the oppressed of tyrant realms may live;
The guilty land is washed in innocent blood;
And slavery is atoned for by the free.

Oh! desolate mother, wailing for thy son,
Be comforted. He was a chosen one.
The Lord selected him from other men,
Because the Eternal Eye discerned in him
Some noble attribute, some spark divine,
Some unseen quality, that was from God,
And is a part of God, howe'er obscured
By human weakness, or by human sin—
Something deemed worthy for the sacrifice
That shall redeem a nation. Weep no more;
For thou art blessed among womankind!

STRECK-VERSE.

The heart freezes upon the snowcapped summit of a mountain of learning.
Lead heads will not answer as plummets to fathom the depths of the Infinite.
Charitable views are enlarged by tear mists.
Thorns form footholds by which to reach the rose.
Looking up to the sun, the sad behold rainbows through their tears.

THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.—A POLISH DRAMA.

Dedicated to Mary.

'To be, or not to be, that is the question.'

'To the accumulated errors of their ancestors, they added others unknown to their predecessors Doubt and Fear;—therefore it came to pass that they vanished from the face of the earth, and a deep silence shrouded them forever.'—Koran il. 18.

In offering to the public a translation of the great drama of Count Sigismund Krasinski, a statesman and poet of Poland, it is not the intention of the translator to enter upon any detailed analysis of this widely and justly celebrated work. Such a dissection would diminish the interest of the reader in the development of the plot, and moreover pertains properly to the critics, to whom 'The Undivine Comedy' is especially commended. It is so full of original and subtile thoughts, of profound truths, of metaphysical deductions and psychological divinations, that it cannot fail to repay any consideration they may bestow upon it. A few general remarks, however, seem necessary to introduce it, in its proper light, to the reader.

The

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy

VOL. VI.—September, 1864—No. III.

CONTENTS

OUR DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.