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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I ICv,YJ\,Q)»o lYoL 18mo. Frioe, fl-fiO. ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT. 1 Yol. lOmo. Price, • 1.50. JAMES B. OSGOOD U CO., PablidMrSi Boston. ATLA'NTIC ESSAYS J^/7 7 BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. ATTENTION PATRON: This volume is too fragile for any future repair. Plesise handle with great care. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, Late Ticknor & Fields, and FxeldSv Osgood, & Co. 1871. ATLA'NTIC ESSAYS BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, LatX TlCEHQIl & FlILDS, AND FlSUIS, OsCOOD, ft Co, 187I. Entexed aocordixig to Act of Congrets, in fiie year 1871» BT JAMES R. OSGOOD ft 00., in the Office of the Libxaxian of CongieBS, at Washington* University Pbbss: Welch, Bigblow, & Ca, Cambrixxs. r ^ .:> CONTENTS. • Pagb ^A Plea for Culture (1867) ,1 Literature as an Art (1867) 23 Americanism in Literature (1870) .... 49 , ' A Letter to a Young Contributor (1862) . . 69 \ Ought Women to learn the Alphabet? (1859) . 93 A Charge with Prince Rupert (1859) . . • 123 i Mademoiselle's Campaigns (1858) 155 The Puritan Minister (1862) . . . . . ^89 Fayal and the Portuguese (i860) .... 225 The Greek Goddesses (1869) 269 Sappho (1871) 299 On an Old Latin Text-'Book (1871) . . . 325 \ \ \ A PLEA FOR CULTURE. r* A PLEA FOR CULTURE. THEODORE PARKER somewhere says (borrow- ing the phrase from what Dr. Johnson said of Scot- land) that in America every one gets a mbuthful of edu- cation, but scarcely any one a full meal. It is the defect of some of our recent debates on this subject, that, instead of remedying the starvation, the reformers propose to de- duct from the dinner. The disputants appear to agree in the assumption that an average Senior Sophister is a plethoric monster of learning, and that something must be done to itake him down. For this end, some plan to re- move his Greek and Latin, others his German, others again his mathematics, — all assuming it as a thing not to be toler- ated, that one small head should carry all he knows. Yet surely it needs but little actual observation of our college boys, in their more unguarded moments, — at the annual regatta, for instance; or among the young ladies on Class Day, — to mitigate these fears. The Class Orator does not always impress us with any bewildering accumu- lation of mental attainments ; nor does the head of the Lazy Club appear to possess more of any branch of letters than he can hope, by reasonable non-industry, to forget within a single year. Because the standard of ac- quirement has been raised within a quarter of a century, 4 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. it does not follow that it is now very high, for our so- called universities were once but high-schools, and it was no uncommon thing for boys to graduate with honor at seventeen. I can easily recall three successive Harvard classes in which this happened. In one class, the first and second scholars were of this unripe age ; in another class, the second scholar ; while in the intermediate class a student obtained very respectable rank, though graduat- ing at sixteen. Honors thus obtained were the honors of school-boys, and showed a boyish standard of attainment ; they gave no guaranty of real merit ; they implied noth- ing which could reasonably be called scholarship. Yet academic laurels like these, with a year or two of pro- fessional study superadded, were all that America had then to give. He who wished for more must exile him- self to find it, or must supply, as he best could, by solitary effort .and with little encouragement, what should have been steadily urged upon him by the full force of some great institution. To say that later years have amended these things a little, is to say something ; but the mass of our colleges are now what the highest were then. The advance in the means of education thus afforded in America bears no comparison with the advance in ma- terial wealth. And how has it been with the other instrumentalities of' American cultpre, during the last twenty-five years? Schools have been improved, periodical publications mul- tiplied, libraries quadrupled, music and pictures made more accessible, at least in our larger cities. These are gains, to be balanced by a few losses. For instance, an institution which was once more potent than all of these for the intellectual training of the adult American has al- most ceased to exist in its original form. The engrossing A PLEA FOR CULTURE. 5 excitement of public affairs has nearly abolished the old "Lyceum," and put a political orator in the lecturer's place. Science and art have long ceased to be the most available subjects for a popular lecture. Agassiz and Bayard Taylor, by dint of exceedingly rapid and continu- ous travelling, can still find a few regions which Ameridans will consent to hear described, outside of America ; and a few wandering lecturers on geology still haunt the field, their discourses being almost coeval with their specimens. Emerson still makes his stately tour, through wondering Western towns, where an enterprising public spirit some- times, it is said, plans a dance for the same evening in the same hall, — " Tickets to lecture and ball one dollar." Yet the fact remains, that nine addresses but of ten in every popular course are simply stump-speeches, more or less eloquent ; and though some moral enlightenment may come from this change of diet, yet to science and art it is a loss. Take away the Lowell and the Cooper Insti- tutes, and all our progress in wealth has secured for the public no increase of purely intellectual culture through lectures. Now there are two aspects to all material successes. They are sublime or base only as they prepare the way for higher triumphs, or displace them. Horace Mann lamented that in European exhibitions the fine arts were always assigned a more conspicuous place than the use- ful arts. Theodore Parker complained that in Rome the studios were better than the carpenterg* shops. Both ex- ulted in the thought that in America these things were better ordered ; and both therein approached the verge of concessions which would sacrifice the noblest aims of man. For carpentry and upholstery, good as a beginning, are despicable as an ending. What cultivated, person 6 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. would not prefer poorer lodgings and better museums? I remember that, many years since," in a crowded country- house, I slept one night on the floor beneath Retzsch's copy of the Sistine Madonna, — then perhaps the loveliest work of art on this continent. As I lay and watched the silent moonbeams enter and rest upon the canvas, I felt that my sjiare of the hospitality was, afler all, the best. The couch might be comfortless, but the dreams were divine. It is such a hospitality that one wishes, afler all, from the age in which he lives. \^ Culture is the training and finishing of the whdle man, until he* sees physical demands to be merely secondary, and pursues science and art as objects of intrinsic worth. It undoubtedly places the fine arts above the useful arts, in a certain sense, and is willingly impoverished in ma- terial comforts, if it can thereby obtain nobler living. When this impulse takes the form 'of a reactionary dis- trust of the whole spirit of the age, it is unhealthy and morbid. In its healthy form, it simply keeps alive the conviction that the life is more than meat ; and so sup- plies that counterpoise to mere wealth which Europe vainly seeks to secure by aristocracies of birth. So far asour colleges go, what is needed seems toler- ably plain. QOur educational system requires a process of addition, not of subtraction ; not to save our children from the painful necessity of studying this or that, but to gain for themthe opportunity of studying that and more, in their own wayS The demand for higher education out- runs the supply. This is proved by the palpable fact, - that more and more pupils are sent to Europe for instruc- tion, every year ; and more from the Western States than from the Eastern. There are more and more young men of fortune whose parents will not stint them in edu- "1' A PLMA F%Jt ^WL^^MJt. 7 cation, at least; mo^e and more young men without wealth, who will live oit bread and water, if need be, to gain knowledge. What we negd is the opportunity of higher education somewhere, -\jthat there should be some place in America where a young man may go and study anything that kindles his enthusiasm, and find, there in- strumentalities to help the fiameA As it is now, the maxi- mum range of study in most of our colleges leaves a ijoung man simply with a good preparation for Germany, while the minimum leaves him very ill prepared for America. What we need is a university. Whether this is to be a new creation, or something reared on the foun- dations now laid at Cambridge, or New Haven, or Ann /^^^ * / i i% t Arbor, is unimportant. Until we have it somewhere, our , means of culture are still provincial. •,*. /'^ Grant this one assumption, that we need a university, and then almost all the recent discussions on the subject seem to be merely questions of detail. There is small difficulty about discipline or selection of studies, when an iifstitution undertakes to deal with n^n, not children, and assumes that they have come to learn, and not to be feruled. Give young men the opportunity to study any- thing which anybody in the land knows, and then the various departments will rest upon their own merits, and students will direct their course as parents^irect, exam- ple influences, or genius guides. But compel them to give their time to something which neither they nor their parents desire, and the result will be ignorance, broken windows, and the torturing of Freshmen. A more difficult point of detail, perhaps, will be to determine how much account should be made, in organ- izing such a university, of bur present undergraduate sys- tem. My own impression is, that the true basis of the 8 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. future university must be the professional grchools, and that what is now called distinctively the College must shrink into a preparatory department, instead of being accepted, as now, for the full sum of a liberal education. Even the professional schools are not yet liberal enough, and their very name indicates that they are founded with a view to certain avocations, and not with a view to cul- ture.. It was a misfortune, in this respect, when the Scientific School at Cambridge abandoned its projected* departments of Latin and Greek ; for these might have led the way (as at New Haven) to Philology, History, and Metaphysics, and would have helped to save science from being confounded with mere technological training. On the other hand, the recent organization of an Aca- demical Senate at Cambridge for the general government of all departments, and the introduction of University Lectures, are a great step towards giving us the larger system which the nation needs. The error committed in our colleges of making Latin and Greek compulsory, and therefore unattractive, should not make us forget that this is, afler all, an error in the direction of high culture, and one more pardonable in America than anywhere else. These languages are a perpetual protest against the strong tendency to make all American education hasty and superficial. They standi for a learning which makes no money, but helps to make| men. Astronomy, metaphysics, the higher mathematics, and the critical or literary study of the modern languages, have the same advantage ; but the Latin and Greek tongues represent this culture best. For they remain still synonymous with accurate linguistic training, and with the study of form iti literature. Compared with these, all modern languages are undeniably loose in struc- A PLEA FOR CULTURE. 9 ture, deficient in models, and destitute of the apparatus of critical study. It is certainly unfortunate that it is so, but there is the fact. The modern languages must be completely transformed, in structure, literary models, text- books, and mode of teaching, before they can be used in education as we now use the Latin and Greek. I know of no institution in America in which it is even attempt- ed thus to use them, — none where they arf3 yet taught except as accomplishments. "Nor is it apparent how they could be otherwise taught with the ordinary instrumen- talities. A man may sjpeak a dozen dialects as fluently as a European courier, and yet know as little as the cou- rier knows of the principles of language. On the other band, it is impossible for any boy to have faithfully learned the simplest manual of Latin or Greek grammar without • having laid some foundation for systematic philology. And as for the literary value of these languages, I will go still further, and with especial reference to that which there is most disposition to banish from use, the Greek. It certainly is not a hasty or boyish judgment on my part, nor yet one in which pedantry or servility can have much to do, when I deliberately avow the belief that the Greek literature b still so entirely unequalled among the accumulated memorials of the world, that it seems to differ from all others in kind rather than in degree. In writing this, I am thinking less of Plato than of Homer, and not more of Homer than of the dramatio and lyric poets. So far from the knowledge of other literatures tending to depreciate the Greek, it seems to me that no one can adequately value this who has not come back to it after long study of the others. Ampere, that mas- ter of French prose, has hardly overstated the truth when he says that the man best versed in all other books 1* 10 A PLEA FOR CULTURE, must say, after all, in returning to a volume of Homer or Sophocles, — " Here is beauty, true and sovereign ; its like was never written among men, — Voila la heavie veritable et souveraine ; jamais il ne s'est ecrit rien de pareil chez les hommesJ* I do not see how there could possibly be a list of the dozen' masterpieces of the world's literature, of which at least one half should not be Greek. And, indeed, when one considers the mere vehi- cle, the language itself, one must remember that there is ^o more possibility of arbitrary choice in languages than in stones ; the best is the best ; and Greek, the nativei tongue of sculptors, is the only tongue that has the tex-| ture of marble. Perhaps every man of studious habits, growing occa- sionally impatient of the healthful practical duties which American life involves, has his own whim as to his imaginary employments in case illness or other inter- • ference should deny him even the action of the pen, and throw him entirely upon books. I can remember a time, for one, when the State prison would have looked rather alluring to me, if it had guaranteed a copy of the Mecamque Celeste^ with full leisure to read it But foremost among such fantastic attractions are those which obtained actual control over that English clerygyman, ' described in Hogg's Life of Shelley, who had for his one sole^aim in existence the reiterated perusal of a three years' course of Greek books. He had no family, almost no professional duties, a moderate income, and perfect health. He tdok his three meals a day and his two short walks ; and all the rest of his waking hours, for thirty years, he gave to Greek. No; he read a newspaper once a week, and two or three times a year he read a few pages of Virgil and Cicero, just to satisfy himself that it , A PLEA FOR CULTURE. U was a waste of time for a man who could read Greek to read their writings. On Sunday he turned to the Septuagint and the New Testament. From his three years* course of authors he never deviated ; when they were ended, he began again. The only exception was Homer, whose works were read every year during a sum- mer vacation of a month at the sea-shore, — " the proper place to read Hdmer," he said. " I read a book of the Iliad every day before dinner, and a book of the Odyssey daily after dinner. Jn a month there are twenty-four week-days ; there being twenty-four books in each poem, it just does it .... I throw in the Hymns, • — there are commonly two or three rainy days in the four weeks when I cannot take a walk." It is hard to imagine a life which would seem to most Americans more utterly misspent than this. Misspent it was, but how harmlessly and how happily I What pure delight, what freedom from perturbation and care, when a dictionary and a dozen books furnished luxury for a lifetime! What were wealth and fame, peerages and palaces, to him who had all jEschylus for a winter resi- dence, and Homer for the seaside I And a culture which seems remotest from practical ends may not only thus furnish exhaustless intellectual enjoyment, but may edu- cate one's aesthetic perceptions to the very highest point. But I repeat, that all preference as to department of study is a secondary and incidental matter, and the special student of any pursuit will have sympathies with the de- votees of all others. The essential thing is, that we should recognize, as a natio;], the value of all culture, and resolutely organize it into our institutions. As a stimulus to this we must constantly bear in mind, and cheerfully acknowledge, that American literature is not yet copious, 12 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. ^ American scholarship not profound, American society not highly intellectual, and the American style of execu- tion, in all high arts, yet hasty and superficial. It is not true, as our plain-speaking friend' Yon Humboldt said, that " the United States are a dead level of mediocrities " ; but it is undoubtedly true that our brains as yet lie chiefly in our machine-shops. Make what apology we please for the defect, it still remains ; while what the world asks of us is not excuses for failure, but facts of success. When Europe comes to America for culture, instead of America's thronging to Europe, the fact will publish it- self and the discussion cease. There is no debate about our reapers and sewing-machines. No candid person can compare the trade-lists of Ameri- can publishei-s with those received from England, France, and Germany, without admitting that we are hardly yet to be ranked among the productive nations in literature. There are single works, and there are individual authors ; but the readiness with which their names suggest them- selves shows how exceptional they are. They represent no considerable literary class, scarcely even a cultivated class. Till Emerson came, we were essentially provin- / cial in the tone of our thought ; provincial in attainments ' we still are. One rarely sees in America, outside the professions, a man who gives any large portion of his life to study ; and the • professions themselves are with us mainly branches of practical activity, not intellectual pur- . suits. This is true even of the* clergy, and of lawyers and physi$ians still more. They are absorbed, perhaps inevitably, in the practical sicje of their occupations. I . was a member, for some time, of a flourishing local Nat- ural History Society, which counted among its active members but one of the numerous physicians of the city A PLEA FOR CULTURE. 13 where it was formed. A college president, wha had been long officially connected with the leading lawyop of Bos- ton, once stated it to me as an axiom, ^^ No eminent law- yer ever reads a book." The chief discouragement of American literature does not seem to me to lie in the want of an international copy- right law, as some think, nor in the fact that other pur- suits bid higher prices. These arc subordinate things, for there will always be men like Palissy, who will starve self and wife and children, if need be, for the sake of their dream. Nor is it from the want of libraries and collections ; for these are beginninji: to exist, and nature exists always. \The true, great want is of an atmosphere of sympathy in intellectual aims. An artist can afford to be poor, but not to-be companionless. It is not well that he should feel pressing on him, in addition to his own doubt whether he can achieve a certain work, the weight of the public doubt whether it be worth achieving. No one can live entirely on his own ideal. The man who is compelled by his constitution to view literature as an art is more lonely in America than even the painter or the sculptor ; aj^he has no Italy for a refuge. His practi- cal life ma^Mb developed by the activity around him ; his aims may be ennobled by the great ideas of his nation ; and so far all is well. It is only his artistic inspiration that lies dormant, and his power of execution that misses its full training. A man of healthy nature .can, indeed, find a certain tonic in this cool atmosphere ; it is only a question whether more perfect works of art may not one day be produced, amid more genial surroundings. Firm must be the will, patient the heart, passionate the aspira- tion, to secure the fulfilment of some high and lonely pur- pose, when rcvery spreads always its beds of roses on the U A FLEA FOR CULTURE. • one side, and practical work summons to its treadmill on the otber9 •Whate^r may have been the case in De Tocqueville's day, — and his report of us, thirty-five years old, seems to be almost the latest intelligence that has reached Europe, — there is certamly now no danger that public life will not have sufficient attractions for cultivated Americans. There is more danger that it will absorb them too much. Why should we insist, like Nick Bot- tom the weaver, on playing all the parts ? The proper paths of the statesman and the artist may oflen touch, but will rarely coincide. It is not that politics are so un- worthy, but that no one man can do everything. iThere are a thousand rough-hewn brains which can well per- form the plain work which American statesmanship now demands, without calling on the artist to cut blocks with his razor. His shrinking is not cowardice ; this relief from glaring publicity is the natural condition under which works of art mature. The cr^^tal forms by its own laws, and the granite by its ownu^Yet moments con- stantly occur to the American., student, when he has to bind himself to the mast, like Farragut, to resis t the daz- zling temptations of paths alien to his own. ^^hat is art, what is beauty (he is tempted to say), beside tne magnifi- cent utilities of American life, — the work of distributing over a continent the varied treasures already gained?^ Why hold against the current, when even one's prospects of immediate usefulness lie with the current, and even conscience joins, half shrinking, to lure him from his plighted faitli ? ^In Europe art is a career, the greatest and most permanent career. History there lies around one, a perpetual incentive, since art has everywhere sur- vived all else, and proved itself alone inunortal. But here A PLEA FOR CULTURE. 15 art is still an alien, — tolerated, protected, respected even, but without a vote. ^ What we thus miSs in literary culture may be best ex- plained by showing the result of the universal politicaL culture which we possess. It is often noticed that, while the leaders of public affairs in America are usually what are called selfrmade men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation ; they have usually " tumbled about in a library," as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Frescott, Mo tley, Ba ncroft. Hildreth. Sparks^ Ticknor, F airrey^ P arkma^ — were all college graduates, and in- feed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is un- doubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer prod- uct than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training ; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the one case, and not in the other. Every American boy imbibes political knowledge through the pores of his skin ; every newspaper, every caucus, contributes to his instruc- tion ; and he is expected to have mature convictions be- fore he is fourteen. In the height of the last Presiden- tial contest, a little boy was hung out of a school window by his heels, within my knowledge, because his small comrades disapproved his political sentiments. For high- er intellectual pursuits there are not only no such penal- ties among us, but there are no such opportunities. |l et 16 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. in Atlieud — with its twenty thousand statues, with the tragedies of -^schylus performed for civic prizes, and the hidtories of Herodotus read at the public games — a boy could no more grow up ignorant of art than he could here remain untrained in poli tics) When we are once convmced that this higher traininsr is desirable, we shall begin to feel the worth of our ac- cumulated wealth. That is true of wealth which Talley- rand said of wisdom, — everybody/ is richer than anybody. The richest man in the world cannot afford the parks, the edifices, the galleries, the libraries, that this commu- nity can have for itself, whenever it chooses to create them. The Central Park in New York, the Public Library at Boston, the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cam- bridge, — these are steps toward a more than Athenian culture. These institutions open theiifvast privileges, free from that sting of selfishness which the private mo- nopolizer feels. Public enthusiasm is roused to sustain^ themi gifts flow in upon them, and they ennoble the com- mon life around. It was claimed for Athens, that wealth could buy few facilities for culture which poverty did not also share. I take it, we aim at least to secure for the poorest American opportunities such as no wealth could buy in Europe. It >may take centuries to accomplish it, but it can be done. And it will not take so lonj]f as one misrht imagine. Although the great intellectual institutions of Europe are often nominally ancient, yet their effective life has been chiefly in the last few centuries. A hundred years ago, the British Museum and the Bodleian Library had each but about ten thousand volumes. The Imperial Library at Paris had then but fifty thousand, and the present cen- tury has added, the most valuable half of its seven hun- A PLEA FOR CULTURE. 17 dred thousand books. At the time of our Eevolution, there were but three public galleries of art in Europe ; and the Louvre, "the chief attraction of the most at- tractive city of the world," is of later origin. One half 6f the leading German universities are younger than Harvard College. With the immense wealth accumulat- ing in America, and the impulse inherent in democracies to identify one's own name and successes with the . com- mon weal, such institutions will rise among us like Alad- din's palace, vrhem public spirit is once thoroughly turned that way. For we must carefully distinguish between a want of cultivated sympathy with the higher intellectual pursuits, and a want of popular respect for them. It is this dis- tinction which relieves the American people from the im- putation of materialism. I solemnly believe that no race , of practical laborers since the world began was ever so ready to feel a tteoretical respect for those higher pur- suits for which it could as yet spare no time. The test of a people is not in its occupations, but in its heroes. Whose photographs are for sale in the shop-windows ? I remember to have observed with delight, in a trade-list of photographic likenesses which reached me while in camp, that even in the very height of the war the civilians outnumbered the soldiers. Who were these civilians ? . There was not a millionnaire among them ; scarcely a man eminent in mere business pursuits ; scarcely a man whose fame was based on his income. They were states- men, preachers, lecturers, poets, — men standing low on the income-lists, and high only on the scale of intangible services, — heroes whose popularity might often be exag- gerated in quantity, no doubt, but in its quality was always honorablQ. The community seeks wealth, but it knows 18 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. how to respect its public men who are poor through hon- esty, or its scholars who are poor for the sake of knowl- edge. Agassiz never said anything which more endeared him to the mass of his adopted fellow-countrymen, than when he declined a profitable lecturing engagement on the ground that he had no time to make money. Such a community is at l^st building the nursery whence artists may be bom. v^U that institutions can do is to saturate the -mass with culture, and give a career to genius when it comes.^ Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks ; they are the summits of ranges. /The thought of a century seems to posterity to have been in- trusted to v^ry few minds, but those minds have always been fed- by a myriad minds unseen.\'Why ask whether there was one Homer or a hundred? The hundred contributed their lives, their h^pes, their pas- sions, their despairs, to enrich the one. ^Genius is lonely^ without the surrounding presence of a people to inspire it. 1 How sad seeiBs the intellectual isolation of Voltaire witir his " Le peuple n'est rien." To have loved America is a liberal education. Let the student think with reverence of the value of this great race to him, and of his possible worth to it, though his very naipe be forgotten. Every act of his may be a solid contribution towards a nation's training. But as the value of a nation to the human race does not depend upon its wealth or numbers, so it does not depend even upon the distribution of elementary knowledge, but upon the high-water mark of its educated mind.. Before the permanent tribunal, copyists and popularizers count for nothing, and even the statistics of common schools are of secondary value. So long as the sources of art and sci- ence are mainly Transatlantic, we are still a province, A PIfEA FOR CULTURE. 19 not a nation. For these are the highest pnrsuits of man, — higher than trades or professions, higher than states- manship, far higher than war. Jean Paul said : '^ Schiller and Herder were both destined for physicians, but Provi- dence said. No, there are deeper wounds than those of the body, — and so they both became authors." It is observable that in English books and magazines everything seems written for some limited circle, — tales for those who can use French phrases, essays for those who can understand a Latin quotation. But every American writer must address himself to a vast audience, possessing the greatest quickness and. common-sense, with but little culture ; and he must command their attention as he can. This has some admirable results; he must put some life into what he writes, or his thirty million auditors will go to sleep ; he must write clearly, or they will cease to fol- low him ; must keep clear of pedantry ^nd unknown tongues, or they will turn to some one who ' can address them in English.^ On the other hand, these same condi- tions tenipt one to accept a low standard of execution, to substitute artifice for art, and to disregard the more per- manent verdict of more fastidious tribunals. The richest thought and the finest literary handling which America has yet produced — as of Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau — reached at first but a small audience, and are but very gradually attaining a' wider hold. Kenan has ^ said that/eVery man's work is superficial, until he has learned to content himself with the approbation of a ^ew. This is only one half the truth ; butit is the half which Americans find hardest to remembera Yet American literature, though its full harvest be postponed for another hundred years, is sure to come to ripeness at last Our national development in this direo- 20 A PLEA FOR CUlfURE. tion, though slow, is perfectly healthy. There are many influences to retard, but none to distort. Even if the more ideal aims of the artist are treated with indifference, it is a frank indifference ;, there is no contempt, no jealousy, no call for petty manoeuvres. No man is asked to flatter this vast audience ; no man can succeed with it by flatter- ing ; it simply reserves its attention, and lets one obtain its ear if he can. When won, it is worth the winning, — generous in its confidence, noble in its rewards. There is abundant cause for strenuous effort among those who give their lives to the intellectual service of America, but there is no cause for fear. If we can only avoid incor-^^ porating superficiality into our institutions, literature will come when all is ready, and when it comes will be of the best. It is not enough to make England or France our standard. There is something in the present atmosphere of England which seems fatal to purely literary genius : its fruits do not mature and mellow, but grow more and more acid until they drop/n Give Ruskin space enough, and he grows frantic ana beats the air like Carlyle. Thackeray was tinged with the same bitterness, but he was the last Englishman who could be said, in any artis- tic sense, to have a style ; as Heine was the last German. The French seems the only prose literature of the present day in which the element of form has any prominent place; and literature in France is after all but a favored slave. This surely leaves a clear field for AfljericaA But it is peculiarly important for us to rem emEer that ' we can make no progress through affectation or spasm, but only by accepting the essential laws of art, which are the same for the whole human race. Any Aisconceived patronage — to call anything art merely because it inter- ests us as being American — must react against us in A PLEA FOR CULTURE, 21 the end. A certain point of culture once reached, we become citizens t)f the world! /Art is higher than nations, older th^ many centuries ; ifs code includes no local or partial provisionsJ No Paris Exposition is truly univer- sal, compared with that vast gallery of Time to which nations and ages are but contributors. So far as circum- stances excuse America from being yet amenable before this high tribunal, she is safe ; but if she enters its juris- diction^ she must own its laws. ^Neither man nor nation can develop by defying traditions, but by first mastering and then remoulding them. That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces of the worldJ Above all other races and all other times, we should be full of hearty faith. It is but* a few years since we heard it said that the age was dull and mean, and inspira- tion gone. A single gun-shot turned meanness to self- sacrifice, mercenary toil to the vigils of the caipp and the transports of battle. It linked boyish and girlish life to new opportunities, sweeter self-devotions, more heroic endings ; tied and loosed the threads of existence in pro- founder complications. That is all past now; but its results can never passi The nation has found its true gmndeur by war ; but must retain it in peace. ^ Peace too has its infinite resources, after a nation has once become conscious of itself. It is impossible that human life should ever be utterly impoverished, and all the currents of American civilization now tend to its en- richment. This vast development of rudimentary intel- lect, this mingling of nationalities, these opportunities of books and travel, educate in this new race a thousand new susceptibilities. Then comes Passion, a hand straying freely through all the chords, and thrilling all with magic. We cannot exclude it, a forbidden guest. It re-creates 22 A PLEA FOR CULTURE. itself in each generation, and bids art live. Rouge gagnjs. If the romance of life doe^not assert itself in safe and innocent ways, it finds its outlet with fatal certainty In guilt ; as we see coloriess Puritanism touched with scar- let splendor through the glass of Hawthorne, f Every form of human life is romantic ; every age may become classicj^ Lamentations, doubts, discouragements, all are wasted things. Everything is here,* between these At- lantic and Pacific shores, save only the perfected utter- ance that comes with years. JBeiween Shakespeare in his cradle and Shakespeare in Hamlet there was needed but an interval of time, and the same sublime condition is all that lies between the America of toil and the America of art. LITERATURE AS AN ART. LITERATURE AS AN ART. AS one looks forward to the America of fifty years hence, the main source of anxiety appears to be in a probable excess of prosperity, and in the want of a good grievance. We seem nearly at the end of those great public wrongs which require a special moral earthquake to end them. Except to secure the ballot for woman, — a contest which is thus far advancing very peaceably, — there seems nothing left which need be absolutely fought for ; no great influence to keep us from a commonplace and perhaps debasing success. There will, no doubt, be still need of the statesman to adjust the details of govern- ment, and of the clergyman to keep an eye on private morals, including his own. There will also be social and religious changes, perhaps great ones ; but there are no omens of any very fierce upheaval. And seeing the edu- cational value to this generation of the reforms for which it has contended, and especially of the antislavery enter- prise, one must feel an impulse of pity for our successors, who seem likely to have no convictions for which they can honestly be mobbed. Can we spare these great tonics ? It is the experience of history that all religious bodies are purified by persecu- tion, and materialized by peace. No amount of hereditary 2 ^ 26 LITERATURE AS AN ART. virtue has thus far saved the merely devout communities from deteriorating, when let alone; into comfort and good dinners. This is most noticeable in detached organizations, — Moravians, Shakers, Quakers, Roman Catholics, — they all go the same way at last ; when persecution and missionary toil are over, they enter on a tiresome millen- nium of meat and pudding. To guard against this spirit- ual obesity, this carnal Eden, what has the next age in reserve for us ? Suppose forty million perfectly healthy and virtuous Americans, what i^ to keep them from being as uninteresting as so many Chinese ? I know of nothing but that aim which is the climax and flower of all civilization, without which purity itself grows dull and devotion tedious, — the pursuit of Science and Art. Give to all this nation peace, freedom, prosperity, and even virtue, still there must be some absorbing in- terest, some career. That career can be sought only in two directions, — more and yet more material prosperity on the one side, Science and Art on the other. Every man's aim must eijher be riches, or something better than riches. Now the we^th .is to be respected and desired, nor need anything be said against it. And certainly nothing need be said in its behalf, there is such a vast chorus of voices steadily occupied in proclaiming it. The instincts of the American mind will take care of that ; but to advocate the alternative career, the striving of the whole nature after something utterly apart from this world's wealth, — it is for this end that a stray voice is needed. It will not take long ; the clamor of the market will reabsorb us to-morrow. It can scarcely be said that Science and Art have as yet any place in America ; or if they have, it is by virtue of their prospective value, as with the bonds of a Pacific LITERATURE AS AN ART. 21 \ railway. I use the ordinary classification, Science and Art, though it is literature only of which I now aim to speak. For under one of these two heads all literature must fall; it may be either a contribution to science 1 through its matter, or to art througli its form. The form of literature is usually called style ; and of the highest kind of literature, called poetry or belles-lettres, the style is an essential, and almost the essential part. It is in this aspect that the matter is now to be considered, — litera-| lure as an art. The latest French traveller, Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, says well, that, for whj^t he calls the academic class ^— or class devoted to pure literature — there is as yet no place in America. Such a class must as yet con- ceal itself, he says, beneath the politician's garb, or the clergyman's cravat. We may observe that, when our people speak of literature^ they are very apt to mean a newspaper article, or perhaps a sermon, or a legal plea. One editor said that it could no. longer Be asserted that literature was ill paid in America, since Governor An- drew had received ten thousand dollars for an argument against the prohibitory liquor law. Even in our largest V cities, there are scarcely the rudiments of a literary class, apart from the newspapers. Now, journalism is an in- valuable outlet for. the leisure time of a literary man but his main work must be given to something else, or his vocation must change its name. He needs the experience of journalism, as he needs that of the lyceum and the caucus, -^ nay, as he needs the gymnasium and the wherry, — to keep himself healthy and sound. But when he gives this main energy of his life to either, though he may not cease- to be useful, he ceases to be a literary man. 28 LITERATURE AS AN ART. It is useless to complain that^ in America, Science is preceding Art; that is inevitable, ^s yet there is a shrinking even from pure science, — that is, from all science which is not directly marketable ; and while this is so, art must be still further postponed^ We have hitherto valued science for its applications, natural history * as a branch of agriculture, mathematics for the sake of life-assurance tables, and even a college education as a training for members of Congress. Just so far as any of these departments have failed of these ends, there is a tendency to disparage them. We are a little like the President Dupaty of t^e French Assembly, who told the astronbmer Laplace that he considered the discovery of a new planet to be far less important than that of a new pudding, since we had already more planets than we knew what to do with, while we never could have puddings enough. We are now outgrowing this limited view of I science, but in regard to literature the delusion still re- f mains ; if it is %be anything more than an amusement, it / must afiford solid information ; it is not yet owned that it I has value for itself, as an art. Of course, all true instruc- tion, however conveyed, is palatable ; to a healthy mind the Mecanique Celeste is good reading ; so is Mill's " Po- litical Economy," or De Morgan's " Formal Logic." But aval fw (^ords are available for something which is more than knowledge. • Words afford a more delicious music than the mowled^ chords of any instrument ; they are susceptible of richer colors than any painter's palette; and that thfey^ould be used merely for the transporation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art. i 9 LITERATURE AS AN ART, 29 A book without art is simply a commodity ; it may be exceedingly valuable to the consumer, very, profitable to the producer, but it does not cbme within the domain of pure literature. It is said that some high legal authority on copyright thus cites a case: *^One Moore had written a book which he called * Irish Melodies,' " and so on. Now, as Aristotle defined the shipbuilder's art to be all of the ship but the wood, so the literary art displayed in Moore's Melodies was precisely the thing ignored in this citation. To pursue literature as an art is not therefore to be a nfathematician nor a political economist ; still less to be a successful journalist, like Greeley, or a lecturer with a thousand annual invitations, like Gough. These careers have really no more to do with literature than has the stage or th^ bar. Indeed, a man may earn twenty thou- sand dollars a .year by writing " sensation stories," and have nothing to do with literature ip^ny high sense. But to devote one's life to perfecting tl^manner, as well as the matter, of one's work ; to expatriate one's self long years for it, like Motley ; to overcome vast physical obsta- cles for it, like Prescott or Farkman ; to live and die only to transfuse external nature into human words, like Thoreau ; to chase dreams for a lifetime, like Hawthorne ; to labor tranquilly and see a nation imbued with one' thoughts, like Emerson, — this it is to pursue literatur as an art. There is apparently something in the Anglo-Saxon mind which causes a slight shrinking from art as such, perhaps associating it with deception or frivolity, — which tolerates it, and, strange to say, even produces it in verse, but really shrinks from it in prose. Across the water, this tendency seems to increase. Just as an Englishman 30 LITERATURE AS AN ART. oflen seems ashamed to speak well, and pooh-poohs all oratory, so he is beginning to show the same slipshod manner on paper. What stands between Americans and good writing is usually want of culture ; we write as well as we know how, while in England the obstacle seems to be merely a boorish whim. The style of many English books and magazines is less careful than ours, — less finished, less harmonious, more inelegant, more slangy. What second-rate American writer would see any wit in describing himself, like Dean Alford in his re- cent book on language, as " an old party in a shovel " ? These bad examples are to be regretted ; for doubtless ten times as many original works are annually published in England as in America, and we have an hereditary right to seek from that nation those models of culture for which we must now turn to France. In a late English magazine, there is an elaborate at- tempt to prove tj^ inferiority in manliness of the French mind as comparOTrwith the English. " Frenchmen are less manly, and Frenchwomen less womanly, than Eng- lish men and women." And one of the illustrations seri- ously offered is this : " In literature they think much of the method, style, and what they themselves call the art of making a book." The charge is true. In France alone among living nations is literature habitually pursued as an art ; and, in consequence of this, despite the seeds of decay which imperialism sowedJFrench prose-writing has no rival in contemporary literature. We cannot fully recognize this fact through translations, because only the most sensa- tional French books appear to be translated. But as French painters and actors now habitually surpass all others even in what are claimed. as the English qualities, — LITERATURE AS AN ART. 31 simplicity and truth, — so do French prose-writers exceL^ jTo be set against the brutality of Carljle and the shrill ' Bcreams of Ruskin, there is to be seen across the Chan-J nel the extraordinary fact of an actual organization of good writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revm des Deux Mondes,and, in short, throughout literature. ^H^hat is there in any other language, for instance, to be com- pared with the voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and literature, and carrying into all that incomparable style, so delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong, — touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of st eel?) ' * ^/^nTnd^erage type'of French novels, one feels the su- periority to the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile analysis* of human character; and therefore they are often painful, — just asTliackfiraxispainfulj — because th ey look at artj MfiJal s ociety, and pain tw hat they see. uTiusthey dwell often on unhappy marriages, because such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On the other "hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them ; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is Jhere left ? 32 LITERATURE AS AN ART. /Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style ; and all her past models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their charm. Yet for knowledge we go to Germany, ^ore than ever, and there is a certain exuberant wealth that can even impart fasci- nation to a bad style, as to that of Jean Paul. Such an author may therefore be very useful to a student who can withstand him, which poor Carlyle could not. (jhere was a time, it is said, when English and American literature seemed to be expiring of conventionalism. Carlyle was the Jenner who inoculated and saved us all bj^^his virus from Germany, and then died of his own diseased It is an exciting thing to remember .the time when all literature was in the inflammatory stage of this superinduced disor- der ; but does any one now read Carlyle's French Revo- lution without a sense of pain ? Every year now shows that the whole trick of style with \diich it was written was false from beginning to end. fiPor surely no style can be permanently attractive that is not simple?) Simplicity must be the first element of literary art. This assertion will no doubt run counter to the common belief. Most persons have an impression of something called style in writing, — as they have an impression of something called architecture in building, — that is ex- ternal and superadded, instead of being the very basis and law of the whole. There is the house, they think, and, if you can afford it, you put on some architecture ; there is the writing, a^ a college-bred man is expected to put on some style. V^he implied assumption is, that he is less likely than another to write simply. This shows our school-boy notions of culture. A really cultivated person is less likely to waste words on mere ornamentation, just as he is less likely to have gingerbread-work on his house'N LITERATURE AS AN ART, 33 Good taste simplifies, ^en whose early culture was de- ficient are far more apt to be permanently sopliomoric than those who lived through the sophoTnore at the proper time and place/^The reason is, that the habit of expres- sion, in a cultivated person, matures with his life; but when a man has had much life and very little expression, he is confused by his own thoughts, and does not know how much to attempt or how to discriminate. When such a person falls on honest slang, it is usually a relief, for then he uses language which is fresh and real to him ; whereas such phrases in a cultivated person usually indi- cate mere laziness and mental undress. Indeed, almost all slang is like parched corn, and should be served up I hot, or else not at all. But it is evident that mere simplicity of style is not enough, for there is a manner of writing which does not satisfy us, though it may be simple and also carefully done. Such, for itistance, is'the prose style of Southey, which was apparently the model for all American writing in its day. We see the result in the early volumes of the North American Review, whose traditions of rather tame correctness were what enabled us to live through the Carlyle epoch with safety. The aim of this style was to avoid all impulse, brilliancy, or surprise, and to be per- fectly colorless ; it was a highly polished smoothness, on which the thoughts rolled like balls. But style is capable of something more than smoothness and clearness ; j^ou see this something more when you turn from Prescott to Motley, for instance ; there is a new quality in the page, — it has become alive. Freshness i s perhaps the best word to describe this additional element ; it is a style that has blood in it. This may come from various sources, — good health, animal spirits, outdoor habits, or simply an 2 * > 0* 34 LITERATURE AS AN ART. ardent nature. It is hard to describe this quality, or to give rules for it : the most obvious way to acquire it is to keep one's life fresh and vigorous, to write only what presses to be saidL and to uttef that as if the world waited for the saying, r Where lies the extraordinary power of "Jane Eyre," for instance? In the intense earnestness which vitalizes every line ; each atom of the author's life appears to come throbbing and surging through it ; every sentence seems endowed with a soul of its own, and looks up at you with human ej[e8^^ The next element oflrterary art may be said to be structu re. So strong in the American mind is the de- mandfor organization, that the logical element of style, which is its skeleton, is not rare among us. But this is only the basis ; besides the philosophical structure of a statement, which comes by thought, there is an artistic structure, wliich implies the education of the taste. So, in the human body, there is a symmetry of the bony frame, and there is a further symmetry of the rounded flesh which should cover it; and in literature it is^ot enough to have a perfectly framed logical skelet0h,^T- there should be also a well-proportioned beauty of utter- ance, which is the flesh. Unless this inward, and outward structure exist, although a book may be never so valuable, it hardly comes within the domain of literary art. These different types of structure may perhaps be illus- trated by three different books, all belonging to the inter- mediate ground between science and art. I should say that Buckle's " History of Civilization," with all its w^ealth and vigor, is exceedingly loose-jointed in all its logical structure, and also very defective in its literary structure, although it happens to have an element of freshness which is rare in such a work, and carries the reader along. LITERATURE AS AN ART. 35 Darwin's "Origin of Species" is better; that has at the bottom a strong logic, whether conclusive or other- wise, but is so rambling and confused in its merely lit- • erary statement, that it dbes itself no justice. A third book, Huxley's " Lectures," combines with its logic a power of clear and symmetrical statement that gives it a rare- charm, and makes it a contribution, not to science alone, but to literature. In what is called poetry, heUes-lettres, or pure literature, the osseous structure is of course bidden ; and the sym- metry suggested is always that of taste rather than of logic, though logic must be always implied, or at least never. violated. In some of the greatest modern authors, however, there are limitations or drawbacks to this sym- metry. Margaret Fuller said admirably of her favorite Goethe, that he had the artist's hand, but not the artist's love of structure ; and in all his prose writings one sees a certain divergent and centrifugal habit, which com- pletely overpowers him before the end of "Wilhelm Meister," and shows itself even in the " Elective Affin- ities," which is, so far. as I know, his most perfect prose wm^k. Tin Emerson, again, one observes a similar defect ; his A unit of structure is the sentence, and the periods seem "^ combined merely by the accident of juxtaposition. Each sentence is a pearl, and the whole essay is so much clipped from the necklace ; but it is fastened at neither end, stnd the beads slip off; when you try to replace them, you .find that they belong in one place as well as in another^^ Yet it is not enough for human beauty to possess sym^ metry of structure, within and without: there must be a beautiful coloring also, wealth of complexion, fineness / 86 LITERATURE AS AN ART. of textare. So the next element of literary art lies ia i\iQchoiceuaf..4^ord8. Style must have richness and feli- city. Words in a master's hands seem more than words ; he can double or quadruple their power by skill in using ; and this is a result so delightful as to give to certain authors a value out of all proportion to their thought. There are books which are' luxuries, livres de luxe^ whose pages seem builded of materials more precious than those of common life. Keats, for example, in poetry, and Landor in prose, give illustrations of this ; and perhaps the repre- sentative instance, in all English literature, of the pris- matic resources of mere words is the poem of "The Eve of St Agnes." But thus to be crowned monarch of the sunset, to trust one's self with full daring in these realms of glory, demands such a balance of endowments as no one in English literature save Shakespeare has attained. In choosing words, it is to be remembered that there is not a really poor one in any language ; each had origi- nally some vivid meaning, but most of them have been worn smooth by passing from hand to hand, and hence the infinite care required in their use. " Language," says Max Miiller, " is a dictionary of faded metaphors " ; and every writer who creates a new image, or even repro- duces an old one by passing it through a fresh mind, enlarges this vast treasure-house. And this applies not only to words of beauty, but to words of wit. " AH wit," said Mr. Pitt, " is true reasoning " ; and Rogers, who pre- served this saying, added, that he himself had lived long before making the discovery that wit was truth. A final condition of literary art is thoroughness^ which must be shown both in the preparation and In the revision of one's work. (The most brilliant mind needs a large accu- mulated capital of facts and images, before it can safely LITERATURE AS AN ART. 37 enter on its business. /Addison, before beginning the Spectator, had accumulated three folio volumes of notes. " The greater part of an author's time," said Dr. Johnson, " is spent in reading in order to write ; a man will turn over half a library to make one book." Unhappily, with these riches comes the chance of being crushed by them, of which the agreeable Roman Catholic writer, Digby, is a striking recent example. There is no satisfaction in being told, as Charles Lamb told Godwin, that "you have read more books that are not worth reading than any other man"; nor in being described, as was Southey by Shelley, as " a talking album, filled with long extracts from forgotten books on unimportant subjects." One must ^o t have more_knowledge than one can keep in subjection ; but every literary man needs to accumulate a "wliolB-teolschesti in his memory, and another in his study, before he can be more than a journeyman at his trade. Yet the labor of preparation is not, after all, more im- portant than that of final revision. The feature of literary art which is always least appreciated by the public, and even by ■yo^.g authors, is the amount of toil it costs. But all the standards, all the precedents of every art, show that the greatest gifts do not supersede the necessity of work. The most astonishing development of native genius in any direction, so far as I know, is that of Mo- zart in music ; yet it is he who has left the remark, that, if few equalled him in his vocation, few had studied it with such persevering labor and such unremitting zeal. There is still preserved at Ferrara the piece of paper on which Ariosto wrote in sixteen different ways one of his most famous stanzas. The novel which Hawthorne left unfinished — and whose opening chapters when published proved so admirable — had" been begun by him, as it 38 LITERATURE AS AN ART. appeared, in five different ways. Yet how many young collegians have at tliis mon^ent in their desks the manu- script of a first novel, and have considered it a piece of heroic toil if they have once revised it ! ^^is to rebuke this literary indolence, and to afford a perpetual standard of high art, that the study of Greek ought to be retaine^d in our schools. The whole future of our literature may depend upon it ; to abandon it is deliberately to forego the very highest models. There is no other literature which so steadily reproaches a young writer, — nothing else by which he may sustain himself till he forms a high standard of his own. Not that he should attempt direct imitations, which are almost -always failures as such, however attractive in other respects; witness Swinburne's "Atalanta." But the true use of Greek literature is perpetually to remind us what a won- drous thing literary art may be, — capable of what range of resources, of what thoroughness in structure, of what perfection in detail. It is a remarkable fact, that the most penetrating and fearless of all our writers, Thoreau, — he who made Nature his sole mistress, and shook him- self utterly free from human tradition, — yet clung to Greek literature as the one achievement of man that seemed worthy to take rank with Nature, pronouncing it " as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself." hese are the qualities of style that seem most obvi- ously important, — simplicity, freshness, structure, choice of w^ds, and thoroughness both of preparation and of finish/Vi et, in aiming at literary art, it must be remem- bered that all the cardinal virtues go into a good style, while each of the seven deadly sins tends to vitiate a bad oneTX What a charm in the merit of humility, for instance, It " as xUieiin LITERATURE AS AN ART 39 as it is sometimes seen in style, leading to a certain self- restraint and moderation of tone, however weighty the argument ! How great the power of an habitual under- statement, on which in due season one strong thought rises, like an ocean-crest, and breaks, and sweeps onward, lavishing itself in splendor !( What a glorious gift of heaven would have been the style of Ruskin, for in- stance, could he but have contained himself, and put forth only half his strength, instead of always planting, in the words of old Fuller, " a piece of ordnance to batter down an aspen-lea f D It would be hardly safe to illustrate what has been said by any multiplication of examples from our own litera- ture. Yet perhaps there will be no danger in saying that ^ America has as yet produced but two authors of whom we may claim that their style is in all respects adequate to their wants, and the perfect vehicle of their thought. It is not always the greatest writers of whom this is true, for one's demands upon the vehicle of thought are in pro- portion to his thoughts; and great ideas strain language more than small ones. We cannot say of either Emer-\ son or Thoreau, for instance, that his style is adequate to / his needs, because the needs are immense, and Thoreau, / at least, sometimes disdains effort. But the only Ameri- • can authors, perhaps, whose style is an elastic garment that fits all the uses of the body, are Irving and Haw- : thorne. This has no reference to the quality of their thought, as to which in Irving we feel a slight mediocrity; no matter, there is the agreeable style, and it does him all the service he needs. By its aid he reached his limit of execution, and we can hardly imagine him, with his or- ganization, as accomplishing more. But in Hawthorne 40 LITERATURE AS AN ART we see astonishing power, always easily^ expressed, and capable of indefinite expansion within certain lateral limits. His early solitude narrowed his affinities, and gave a kind 0f bloodlessness to his style; clear in hue, fine in texture, it is apt to want the mellow tinge which indicates a robust and copious life. Even such a criti- cism seems daring, in respect to anything so beautiful ; and I can conceive of no other defect in the style of Hawthorne. Perhaps the conclusion of the whole matter may seem to be that literary art is so lofty a -thing as to be beyond the reach of any of us ; as the sage in Rasselas, discours- ing on poetry, only convinces his hearers that no one. ever . can be a poet. After so much in the way of discourage- ment, it should be added, — what the most limited expe- rience may teach us all, — that there is no other pursuit so unceasingly delightful. As some one said of love, "all other pleasures are not worth its pains." But the literary roan must love his art, as the painter must love painting, out of all proportion to its rewards ; or rather, the delight of the work must be its own reward. Any praise or guerdon hurts him, if it bring any other pleasure to eclipse this. The reward of a good sentence is to have written it ; if it bring fame or fortune, very well, so long as this recompense does not intoxicate. The peril is, that all temporary applause is vitiated by uncertainty, and may be leading you right or wrong. Goethe wrote to Schiller, " We make money by our poor books." ) The impression is somehow conveyed to the young, that there exists somewhere a circle of cultivated minds, gifted with discernment, who can distinguish at a glance between Shakespeare and Tupper. One may doubt the existence of any such contemporary tribunal. Certainly LITERATURE AS AN ART. 41 there is none such in America. Provided an author says something noticeable, and obeys the ordinary rules of grammar and spelling, his immediate public asks little more ; and if he attempts more, it is an even chance that it leads him away from favor. Indeed, within the last few years, it has come to be a sign of infinite humor to* dispense with even these few rules, and spell as badly as possible. Yet even if you went to* London or to Paris in search of this imaginary body of critics, you would not find them ; there also you would find the transient and the immortal confounded together, and the transient often uppermost. Even a foreign country is not always, as has been said, a contemporaneous posterity. It is said that no American writer washer so warmly received in England as Artemus Ward(^ It is only the slow alembic of the years that finally extracts from this vast mass of literature its few immortal drops, and leaves the rest to peristr;Sj I kH^ of no tonic more useful for a young writer than to read carefully, in the English Reviews of seventy or eighty years ago, the crushing criticisms on nearly every author of that epoch . who has achieved lasting fame. What cannot there be read, however, is the sterner his- tory of those who were simply neglected. Look, for in- stance, at the career of Charles Lamb, who now seems to us a writer who must have disarmed opposition, and have been a favorite from the first. Lamb's " Rosamond Gray** was published in 1798, and for two years was not even reviewed. His poems appeared during the same year. In 1815 he introduced Talfourd to Wordsworth as his own " only admirer." In 1819 the seriee of " Essays of Elia" was be^un, and Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt that year : " When I think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see 42 LITERATURE AS AN ART. how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite and com- plete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame ? " These Essays were published in a volume in 1823 ; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just be- *fore Lamb*8 death, " it was difficult .to light upon a person who had read Elia." • ___ This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote early, side by side, in " The Token," about 1827, forty years ago. Willis rose at once to noto- riety, but Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the editor of the work, states in his autobiography, that Hawthorne's contribu- tions " did not attract the slightest attention." Ten years later, in 1837, these same sketches were collected in a volume, as " Twice-Told Tales " ; but it was almost im- possible to find a publisher for them, and when published they had no success. I well remember the apathy with which even the enlarged edition of 1842 wa& received, in spite of the warm admiration of a few ; nor was it until the publication of " The Scarlet Letter," in 1850, that its author could fairly be termed famous. For twenty years he was, in his own words, ** the obscurest man of letters in America " ; and it is the thought to which the mind must constantly recur, in thinking of Hawthorne, — How could any combination of physical and mental vigor enable a man to go on producing works of such a quality in an atmosphere so chilling ? probably the truth is, that art precedes criticism, and that every great writer v<;reates or revives the taste by which he is appreciated. ,; True, we are wont to claim that " one touch of nature makes the whole world kin " ; but it sometimes takes the world a good while to acknowl- edge its poor relations. It seems hard for most persons LITERATURE AS AN ART. 43 to recognize a touch of nature when they see it. ^Tie trees have formed their buds in autumn every year since trees first waved ; yet you will find that the great major- ity of persons have never made that discovery, but sup- pose that Nature gets up those ornaments in spring. } And if we are thus blind to what hangs conspicuousFy before our eyes for the wh61e long winter of every year, how unobservant must we be of the rarer phases of earthly beauty and of human life ! 'Keep to the conven- tional, and you have something which all have seen, even if they disapprove; copy Nature, and her colors make art appear incredible. If you could paint the sunset be- fore your window as gorgeous as it is, your picture would be hooted from the walls of the exhibition. If you were to write into fiction the true story of the man or woman you met yesterday, it would be scouted as too wildly unreal. Indeed, the literary artist may almost say, as did the Duke of Wellington when urged to write his memoirs, "I should like to speak the truth; but if I di(L^ should be torn in pieces." /Therefore the writer, when he adopts a high aim, must . be a law to himself, bide his time, and take the risk of discovering, at last, that his life has been a failure. 3 His task is one in which failure is easy, when he must not only depict the truths of Nature, but must do this with such verisimilitude as to vindicate its truth to other eyes. ,And since this recognition may not even begin till after his death, we can see what Rivarol meant by his fine say- ing, that "genius is only great patience," and Bufibn, by his more guarded definition of genius as the aptitude for atience. Of all literary qualities, this patience has thus far been rarest in America. Therefore, there has been in our 44 LITERATURE AS AN ART. literature scarcely any quiet power ; if effects are pro- duced, they must, in literature as in paintiug, be sensa- tional, and cover acres of canvas. As yet, the mass of our writers seek originality in mere externals ; we think, because we live in a new country, we are unworthy of ourselves if we do not Americanize the grammar and spelling-book. In a republic, must the objective case be governed by a verb ? We shall yet learn that it is not new literary forms we need, but only fresh inspiration, combined with cultivated taste. The standard of good art is always much the same ; modifications are trifling. Otherwise we could not enjoy any foreign literature. A fine phrase in -^schylus or Dante affects us as if we had read it in Emerson. A structural completeness in a work of art seems the same in the (Edipus Tyrannus as in *' The Scarlet Letter." ^^rt has therefore its law ; and eccentricity, though often promising as a mere trait of youth, is only a disfigurement to maturer yearsOTlt is " o^nrxt. no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote " Leaves of tuJU ^^aX- Grass," only that he did not burn it afterwards and reserve V>*»* olfciwliimself for something bettewN A young writer must com- tflt- uttW Baonly plough in his first crop, as the farmer does, to en- 4 1^4^ rich the soil. Is it luxuriant, astonishing, the wonder of ^^ ^Wc the neighborhood ; so much the better, — in let it go ! Sydney Smith said, in 1818, " There does not appear to be in America, at this moment, one man of any con- siderable talents." Though this might not now be said, we still. stand before the world with something of the Swiss reputation, as a race of thrifty republicans, patriotic and courageous, with a decided turn for mechanical inven- tion. What we are actually producing, even to-day, in any domain of pure art, is very little ; it is only the broad av erage in telligence of the masses that does us any LITERATURE AS AN ART. 45 credit. And even this is easily exaggerated. [The ma- jority of members of Congress talk bad grammaK; so do, the majority of public-school teachers. I do not mean! merely that they speak without elegance, but that in mo- ments .of confidence thev say " We was," and " Them things," and " I done it.|y With the present predomi- nance of merely scientific studies, and the ini^reasing dis- taste for the study of language, this will not soon diminish. For all that, there are already visible, in the American temperament, two points of great promise in respect to art in general, and literary art above all. First, there, is in this temperament a certain pliability and impressibility, as compared with the rest of the Anglo- Saxon race ; it shows a finer grain and a nicer touch. If this is not yet brought to bear on literature, it is only because the time has not come. It is visible everywhere else. The aim which Bonaparte avowed as his highest ambition for France, to convert all trades into arts, is be- ing rapidly fulfilled all around us. There is a constant tendency to supersede brute muscle by the fibres of the brain, and thus to assimilate the rudest toil to what Bacon calls " sedentary and within-door arts, that require rather the finger than the arm." It is clear that this same im- pulse, in higher and higher applications, must culminate in the artistic creation of beauty. And to fortify this fine instinct, we may trust, secondly, in the profound earnestness which still marks our people. With all this flexibility, there is yet a solidity of principle beneath, that makes the subtile American mind as real and controlling as that of the robust race from which it sprang. Though the present tendency of our art is to- wards foreign models, this is but a temporary thing. We must look at these till we have learned what they can 46 LITERATURE AS AN ART. teach, but a race in which the moral nature is strongest will be its own guide at last. And it is a comfort thus to end in the faith that, as the foundation of all true greatness is in the conscience, so we are safe if we can but carry into science and art the same earnestness of spirit which has^jought through the great civil war and slain slavery. ^As "the Puritan lias triumphed " in this stern contest, so must the Puritan triumph in the more graceful emulations that are to come ; but it must be the Puritanism of Milton, not of Cromwell only^x The invigorating air of great moral principles musforeathe through all our literature ; it is the expand- ing spirit of the seventeenth century by which we must conquer now. It is worth all that has been sacwficed in New England to vindicate this one fact, the supremacy of the moral nature. All culture, all art, without this, must be but rootless flowers, such as flaunt round a nation's decay. All the long, stem reign of Plymouth Rock and Salem Meet- ing-House was well spent, since it had this for an end, — to plough into the American race the tradition of absolute rin:hteousness, as the immutable foundation of all. This was the purpose of our fathers. There should be here no European frivolity, even if European grace disappeared with it. For the sake of this great purpose, history will pardon all their excesses, ■^— overwork, grim Sabbaths, prohibition of innocent amusements, all were better than to be frivolous. And so, in these later years, the arduous reforms into which the life-blood of Puritanism has passed have all helped to train us for art, because they have trained us in earnestness, even while they seemed to run counter to that spirit of joy in which art has its being. For no joy is joyous which has not its root in LITERATURE AS AN ART 47 something noble. In what awful lines of light has this truth been lately written against the sky ! What graces might there notjiave been in that Southern society be- fore the war ? QHere and there in its midst were to be found ease, affluence, leisure, polished manners, European culture, — all worthless; it produced not a book, not a painting, not a statue ; it concentrated itself on- politics, and failed ; then on war, and failed ; it is dead and van- ished, leaving only memories of wrong behindA Let us not be too exultant ; the hasty wealth of New ^ork may do as little. Intellect in this age is not to be found in the circles of fashion ; it is not found in such society in Europe, it is not here. Even in Paris, the world's capital, imperialism • tainted all it touched; and art survived in spite of it. We, a younger and cruder race, need still to go abroad for our standard of execution, but our ideal and our faith must be our own. 1.-^ ;v' AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. THE Toyager from Europe who lands upon our shores perceives a difference in the sky above his head ; the height seems loftier, the zenith more remote, the horizon-wall more steep ; the moon appears to hang in middle air, beneath a dome that arches far beyond it. The sense of natural symbolism is so strong in us, that the mind seeks a spiritual significance in this glory of the atmosphere. It is not enough to find the sky en- larged, and not the mind, — coelumyTion animum. One wishes to be convinced that here the intellectual man in- hales a deeper breath, and walks with bolder tread ; that philosopher and artist are here more buoyant, more fresh, more fertile ; that the human race has here escaped at one bound from the despondency of ages, as from their wropgs. rkmdL the true and healthy Americanism is to be found, leNus believe, in this attitude of hope ; an attitude not necessarily connected with culture nor with the absence of culture, but with the consciousness of a new impulse given to all human progress^ The most ignorant man may feel the full strength and^eartiness of the American idea, and so may the most accomplished scholar. It is a matter of regret if thus far we have mainly had to look 62 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. for our Americanism and our scholarship in very different quarters, and if it has been a rare delight to find the two in one.'^ It seems unspeakably important that all persons among us, and especially the student and the writer, should be pervaded with Americanism. Americanism includes the faith that national self-goTemment is not a chimera, but that, with whatever inconsistencies and drawbacks, we are steadily establishing it here. It includes the faith that to this good thing all other good things must in time be added. When a man is heartily imbued with such a national sentiment as this, it is as marrow in his bonesL and blood in his veins. He may still need culture, but he has the basis of all culture. He is entitled to an imperturbable patience and hopefulness, bom of a living faith. All that is scanty in our intellectual attainments, or poor in our artistic life, may then be cheerfully en-, dured : if a man sees his house steadily rising on sure foundations, he can wait or let his children wait for the cornice and the frieze. But if one happens to be bom or bred in Ajnerica without this wholesome confidence, there is no happiness for him ; he has his alternative between being unhappy at home and unhappy abroad; it is a choice of martyrdoms for himself, and a certainty of martyrdom for his friends. • Happily, there are few among our cultivated men in whom this oxygen of American life is wholly wanting. Where such exist, for them the path across the ocean is easy, and the return how hard I Yet our national char- acter develops -slowly ; we are aiming at something bet- ter than our English fathers, and we pay for it by gi'eater vacillations and vibrations of movement The English- man's strong point is a vigorous insularity which he car- AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 63 ries*with him, portable and sometimes insupportable. • The American's more perilous gift is a certain power of assimilation, so that he acquires something from every man he meets, but runs the risk of parting with something in return. For the result, greater possibilities of culture, balanced by greater extremes of sycophancy and meanness. Emerson says that the Englishman of all men stands most firmly on his feet. But it is not the whole of man's mission to be found standing, even at the most important post Let him take one step forward^ — and in that advancing figure you have the American. We are accustomed to say that the war and its results have made us a nation, subordinated local distinctions, cleared us of our chief shame, and given us the pride of a common career. This being the case, we may afford to treat ourselves to a little modest self-confidence. Those whose faith in the American people carried them hope- fully through the long contest with slavery will not be daunted before any minor perplexities of Chinese immi- grants or railway brigands or enfranchised women. We are equal to these things ; and we shall also be oqual to the creation of a literature. We need intellectual culture inexpressibly, but we need a hearty faith still more. " Never yet was there a great migration that did not re- sult in a new form of national genius." But we must guard against both croakers and boasters ; and above all, we must look beyond our little Boston or New York or Chicago or San Francisco, and be willing citizens of the great Republic. The highest aim of most of our literary journals had thus far been to appear English, except where some di- verging experimentalist has said, " Let us be German," or " Let us be French." This was inevitable ; as inevit- 54 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. able as a boy's first imitations of Byron or Tennyson. But it necessarily implied that our literature must, during this epoch, be second-rate. We need to become national , not by any conscious effort, such as implies attitudinizing and constraint, but by simply accepting our own life, It is not desirable to go out of one's way to be original, but it is to be hoped that it may lie in one's way. Originality is simply a fresh pair of eyes. If you want to astonish the whole world, said Rahel, tell the shnple truth. It is easier to excuse a thousand defects in the literary man who proceeds on this faith, than to forgive the one great defect of imitation in the purist who seeks only to be English. As Wasson has said, '^The Englishman is undoubtedly a wholesome figure to the mental eye ; but will not twenty million copies of him do, for the present ? ** We must pardon something to the spirit of liberty. We must run some risks, as all immature creatures do^ in the effort to use our own limbs. Professor Edward Channing used to say that it was a bad sign for a college boy to write too well ; there should be exuberances and inequal- ities. A nation which has but just begun to create a literature must sow some wild oats. The most tiresome yaingloriousness may be more hopeful than hypercriticism and spleen. The follies of the absurdest spread-eagle orator may be far more promising, because they smack more of the soil, than the neat Londonism of the city editor who dissects him. It is but a few years since we hare dared to be Ameri- can in even the details and accessories of our literary Vork ; to make our allusions to natural objects real, not conventional ; to ignore the nightingale and skylark, and look for the classic and romantic on our own soil. This change began mainly with Emerson. Some of as can AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. S5 recall the bewilderment with which i;Lis verses on the humblebee, for instance, were received, when the choice of subject caused as much wonder as the treatment It was called " a foolish affectation of the familiar." Happily the atmosphere of distance forms itself rapidly in a new land, and the poem has now as serene a place in literature as if Andrew. Marvell had written it. The truly cosmopol- itan writer is not he who carefully denudes his work of everything occasional and temporary, but he who makes his local coloring forever classic through the fascination of the dream it tells. Reason, imagination, passion, are universal ; but sky, climate, costume, and even type of human character, belong to some one spot alone till they find an artist potent enough to stamp their associations on the memory of all the world. Whether his work be pic- ture, or symphony, legend or lyric, is of little moment. The spirit of the execution is all in all. As yet, we Americans have hardly begun to think of the details of execution in any art We do not aim at perfection of detail even in engineering, much less in literature. In the haste of our national life, most of our intellectual work is done at a rush, is something inserted in the odd moments of the engrossing pursuit. The popular preacher becomes a novelist ; the editor turns his paste- pot and scissors to the compilation of a history ; the same man must be poet, wit, philanthropist, and genealogist We find a sort of pleasure in seeing this variety of eflPort, just as the bystanders like to see a street-musician adjust every joint in his body to a separate instrument, and play a concerted piece with the whole of himself. To be sure, he plays each part badly, but it is such a wonder he should play them all ! Thus, in^our rather hurried and helter-skelter training, the man is brilliant, perhaps ; his 66 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. main work is well done; but his secondary work is slurred. The book sells, no doubt, by reason of the au- thor's popularity in other fields ; it is only the tone of our national literature that suffers. There is nothing in American life that can make concentration cease to be a virtue. Let a man choose his pursuit, and make all else count for recreation only. Goethe's advice to Eckermann is infinitely more important here than it ever was in Ger- many : " Beware of dissipating your powers ; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay," In one respect, however, this desultory activity is an advantage : it makes men look in a variety of directions for a standard. As each sect in religion helps to protect us from some other sect, so every mental tendency is the limitation of some other. We need the English culture, but we do not need it more evidently than we need the German, the French, the Greek, the Oriental. In prose literature, for instance, the English contemporary models are not enough. There is an admirable vigor and hearti- ness, a direct and manly tone ; King Richard still lives ; but Saladin also had his fine sword-play ; let us see him. There are the delightful French qualities, — the atmos- phere where literary art means fineness of touch. "Oh il n'y a point de d61icatesse, il n'y a point de litterature. Un 4crit oh ne se rencontrent que de la force et un cer- tain feu sans ^elat n'annonce que le caractere." But there is something in the English climate which seems to turn the fine edge of any very choice scymitar till it cuts Saladin's own fingers at last. God forbid that I should disparage this broad Anglo- Saxon manhood which is the basis of our national life. I AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 67 knew an American mother who sent her boy to Bugbj School in England, in the certainty, as she said, that he would there learn two things, — to play cricket and to speak the truth. He acquired both thoroughly, and she brought him home for what she deemed, in comparison, the ornamental branches. We cannot spare the English- man from our blood, but it is our business to make him more than an Englishman. That iron must become . steel; finer, harder, more elastic, more polished. For this end the English stock was transferred from an island ' to a continent, and mixed with new ingredients, that it might lose its quality of coarseness^ and take a more deli- cate grain. As yet, it must be owned, this daring expectation is but feebly reflected in our books. In looking over any collection of American poetry, for instance, one is struck ^wlth the fact that it is not so much faulty as inadequate. fjEmerson set free the poetic intuition of America, Haw- M£orne its imagination. Both looked into the realm of passion, Emerson with distrust, Hawthorne with eager interest; but neither thrilled with its spell, and the American poet of passion is .yet to come. How tame and manageable are wont to be the emotions of our bards, howplacid and literary their allusions ! There is no baptism of fire ; no heat that breeds excess. Yet it * is not life that is grown dull, surely ; there are as many secrets in every heart, as many skeletons in every closet, as in any elder period of the world's career. It is the in- tei'preters of life who are found wantingy^nd that not on this soil alone, but throughout the Angbmaxon race. It is not just to say, as some one has said, that our language has not in this generation, produced a love-song, for it has produced Browning ; but was it in England or in Italy 8* 58 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. that he learned to sound the depths of all human emo- tion ? And it is not to verse alone that this temporary check of ardor applies. It is often said that prose fiction now occu- pies the place held by the drama during the Elizabethan age* Certainly this modern product shows something of the brilliant profusion of that wondrous flowering of genius ; but here the resemblance ends. Where in our imagina- tive literature does one find th^ concentrated utterance, the intense and breathing life, the triumphs and despairs^ the depth of emotion, the tragedy, the thrill, that meet one everywhere in those Elizabethan pages ? What im- petuous and commanding men are these, what passionate women ; how they love and hate, struggle and endure ; how they play with the world ; what a trail of fire they leave behind them as they pass by ! Turn now to recent fiction. Dickens's people are amusing and lovable, no doubt; Thackeray's are wicked and witty; but how under-sized they look, and how they loiter on the mere surfaces of life, compared, I will not say with Shake- speare's, but even with Chapman's and Webster's men. Set aside Hawthorne in America, with perhaps Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot in England, and there would scarcely be a fact in prose literature to show that we modern Anglo-Saxons regard a profound human emotion as a thing worth the painting. Who now darfes delineate a lover, except with good-natured pitying sarcasm, as in " David Copperfield " of " Pendennis " ? In the Eliza- bethan period, with all its unspeakable coarseness, hot blood still ran in the veins of literature ; lovers burned and suffered and were men. And what was true of love was true of all the passions of the human soul. In this respect, as in many others, France has pre- AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 69 served more of the artistic tradition. The common criti- cism, however, is, that in modem French literature, as in the Elizabethan, the play of feeling is too naked and ob- vious, and that the Puritan self-restraint is worth more than all that dissolute wealth.' I believe it i^fand here comes in the intellectual worth of America. Puritanism was a phase, a discipline, a hygiene ; but we cannot re- main always Puritans. The world needed that moral bracing, even for its art ; but, after all, life is not im- poverished by being ennobled ; and in a happier age, with a larger faith, we may again enrich ourselves with poetry and passion, while wearing that heroic girdle still around u^ Then the next blossoming of the world's imagination need not bear within itself, like all the others, the seeds of an epoch of decay. I utterly reject the position taken by Matthew Arnold, that the Puritan spirit in America was essentially hostile to literature and art. Of course the forest pioneer can- not compose orchestral symphonies, nor the founder of a state carve statues. But the thoughtful and scholarly men who created the Massachusetts Colony brought with them the traditions of their universities, and left these embodied in a college. The Puritan life was only his- torically inconsistent with culture ; there was no logical antagonism. Indeed, that life had in it much that was congenial to art, in its enthusiasm and its truthfulness. Take these Puritan traits, employ them in a more genial sphere, add intellectual training and a sunny faith, and you have a soil suited to art above all others. To deny it is to see in art only something frivolous and insincere. The American writer in whom the artistic instinct was strongest came of unmixed Puritan stock. Major John Hathorne, in 1692, put his offenders on > 60 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. trial, and generally convicted and hanged them all. Nathaniel Hawthorne held his more spiritual tribunal two centuries later, and his keener scrutiny found some ground of vindication for each one. The fidelity, the thoroughness, the conscientious purpose, were the same in each. Both sought to rest their work, as all art and all law roust rest, upon the absolute truth. The writer kept, no doubt, something of the sombreness of the magis- trate ; each, doubtless, suffered in the woes he studied ; and as the one *^ had a knot of pain in his forehead all winter" while meditating the doom of Arthur Dimmes- dale, so may the other have borne upon his own brow the trace of Martha Corey's grief. " \J^o^ it does not seem to me that the obstacle to a new birlli of literature and art in America lies in the Puritan tradition, but rather in the timid and faithless spirit that lurks in the circles of culture^nd still holds something of literary and academic leadership in the homes of the Puritans. What are the ghosts of a myriad Blue Laws compared with the transplanted cynicism of one "Satur- day Review " ? How can any noble literature^erminate where young men are habitually taught that there is no such thing as originality, and that nothing remains for us in this effete epoch of history but the mere recombining of thoughts which sprang first from braver brains ? It is melancholy to see young men come forth from the col- lege walls with less enthusiasm than they carried in ; trained in a spirit which is in this respect worse than English toryism, — that it does not even retain a hearty faith in the past. It is better that a man should have eyes in the back of his head than that he should be taught to sneer at even a retrospective vision. , One may be- lieve that the golden age is behind us or before us, but AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 61 alas for the forlorn wisdom of him who rejects it alto- gether ! It is not the climax of culture that a college graduate should emulate the obituary praise bestowed by Cotton Mather on the Rev. John Mitchell of Cambridge, " a truly aged young man." Better a thousand times train a boy on Scott's novels or the Border Ballads than educate him to believe, on the one side, that chivalry was a cheat and the troubadours imbeciles, and on the other hand, that universal suffrage is an absurdity and the one real need is to get rid of our voters. A great crisis like a civil war brings men temporarily to their senses, and the young resume the attitude natural to their years, in spite of their teachers ; but it is a sad thing when, in seeking for the generous impulses of youth, we have to turn from the public sentiment of the colleges to that of the workshops and the farms. It is a thing not to be forgotten, that for a long series of years the people of our Northern States were habitually in advance of their institutions of learning, in courage and comprehensiveness of thought. There were long years during which the most cultivated scholar, go soon as he embraced an unpopular opinion, was apt to find the college doors closed against him, and only the country lyceum — the people's college — left open. Slavery had to be abolished before the most accomplished orator of the nation could be invited to address the graduates of his own university. The first among American scholars was nominated year after year, only to be rejected, be- fore the academic societies of his own neighl^orhood. Yet during all that time the rural lecture associations showered their invitations on Parker and Phillips ; cul- ture shunned them, but the common people heard them gladly. The home of real thought was outside, not in- 62 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. side, the college walls. It hardlj embarrassed a profes- sor's position if he defended slavery as a' divine institu- tion ; but he risked his place if he denounced the wrong. In tho^e days, |f by any chance a man of bold opinions drifted into a reputable professorship, we listened sadly to hear his voice grow faint. He usually began to losl^ his faith, his courage, his toleration, — in short, his Americanism, — when he left the ranks of the unin- structed. That time is past ; and the literary class has now come more into sympathy with the popular heart. It is perhaps fortunate that there is as yet but little espnt de corps among our writers, so that they receive their best sym- pathy, not from each other, but from the people. Even the memory of our most original authors, as Thoreau, or Margaret Fuller Ossoli, is apt to receive its sharpest stabs from those of the same guild. When we American writers find grace to do pur best, it is not so much be- cause we are sustained by each other, as that we are con- scious of a deep popular heart, slowly but surely answer- ing back to ours, and offering a worthier stimulus than the applause of a coterie. If we once lose faith in our audience, the muse grows silent. Even the. apparent in- difference of this audience to culture ^nd high finish may be in theend a wholesome influence, recalling us to those more important things, compared to which these are sec- ondary qualities. The indifference is only comparative ; our public prefers good writing, as it prefers good elocu- tion ; but it values energy, heartiness, and action more. The public is right ; it is the business of the writer, as of the speaker, to perfect the finer graces without sacrificing things more vital. " She was not a good singer," says some novelist of his heroine, ^ but she sang with an in- AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 63 spiration such as good singers rarelj indulge in/' Given those positive qualities, and I think that a fine execution does not hinder acceptance in America, hut rather aids it. Where there is beauty of execution alonej a popular audience, even in America, very easily goes to sleep. And in such matters, as the French actor, Samson, said to the young dramatist, " sleep is an opinion." It takes more than grammars and dictionaries to make a literature. ^*It is the spirit in which we act that is the great matter," Goethe says. Der Geist aus dem wir handeln ist das Hochste, Technical training may give the negative merits of style, as* an elocutionist may help a public speaker by ridding him of tricks. But the posi- tive force of writing or of speech must come from positive sources, — ardor, energy, depth of feeling or of thought. No instruction ever gave these, only the inspiration of a great soul, a great need, or a great people. We all know that a vast deal of oxygen may go into the style of a man ; we see in it not merely what books he has read, what company he has kept, but also the food he eats, the exer- cise he takes, the air he breathes. And so there is oxygen in the collective literature of a nation, and this vital element proceeds, above all else, from liberty. For want of this wholesome oxygen, the voice of Victor Hugo comes to us uncertain and spasmodic, as of one in an alien atmosphere where breath is pain ; fot want of it, the eloquent English tones that at first sounded so clear and bell-like now reach us only faint and muffled, and lose their music day by day. It is by the presence of this oxygen that American literature is to be made great. We are lost if we permit this inspiration of our nation's life to sustain only the journalist and the stump-speaker, while we allow the colleges and the books to be choked 64 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. with the dust of dead centuries and to pant for daily breath. Perhaps it may yet be found that the men who are contributing most to raise the tone of American literature are the men who have never yet written a book and have scarcely time to read one, but by their heroic energy in other spheres are providing exemplars for what our books shall one day be. The man who constructs a great me- chanical work helps literature, for he gives a model which shall one day inspire us to construct literary works as great. I do not wish to be forever outdone by the car- pet-machinery of Clinton "br the grain-elevators of Chi- cago. We have not yet arrived at our literature, — other things must come first ; we are busy with our rail- roads, perfecting the vast alimentary canal by which the nation assimilates raw immigrants at the rate of half a million a year. We are not yet producing, we are di- gesting: food now, literary composition by and by: Shakespeare did not write " Hamlet" at the dinner-table. It is of course impossible to explain this ta foreigners, and they still talk of convincing, while we talk of din- ing. For one, I cannot dispense with the society which we call uncultivated. Democratic sympathies seem to be mamly a matter of vigor and health. It seems to be the first symptoto of biliousness to think that only one's self and one's cousins are entitled to consideration, and constitute the world. Every refined person is an aristo- crat in his dyspeptic moments; when hearty and well, he demands a wider range of sympathy. It is so tedious to live only in one circle and have only a genteel ac- quaintance ! Mrs. Trench, in her delightful letters, com- plains of the society in Dresden, about the year 1800, AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 65 because of 'Hhe impossibility, without overstepping all bounds of social custom, of associating with any but noblesse,^* We order that matter otherwise in America. I wish not only to know my neighbor, the man of fashion, who strolls to his club at noon, but also my neighbor, the wheelwright, who goes to his dinner at the same hour. One would not wish to be unacquainted with the fair maiden who drives by in her basket-wagon in the after- noon ; nor with the other fair maiden, who may be seen at her wash-tub in the morning. Both are quite worth knowing ; both are good, sensible, dutiful girls : the young laihidress is the better mathematician, because she has gone through the grammar school ; but the other has the better French accent, because she has spent half her life in Paris. They offer a variety, at least, and save from that monotony which besets any set of people when seen alone. There was much reason in Horace Wal- pole's coachman, who, having driven the maids of honor all his life, bequeathed his earnings to his son, on condi- that he^should never marry a maid of honor. affirm that democratic society, the society of the re, enriches and does not impoverish human life, and gives more, not less, material for literary art. Distrib- uting culture through all classes, it diminishes class-dis- tinction and develops individuality, j Perhaps it is the best phenomenon of American Ik^, thus far, that the word " gentleman," which in England still designjites a social order, is here more apt to refer to personal char- acter. When we des<5ribe a person as a gentleman, we usually refer to his manners, morals, and education, not to his property or birth ; and this change alone is worth the transplantation across the Atlantic. The use of the word " lady " is yet more comprehensive, and therefore IS 66 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. more honorable still ; we sometimes see, in a shopkeeper's advertisement, " Saleslady wanted." No doubt the mere fashionable novelist lo^es terribly by the change : when all classes may wear the same dress-coat, what is left for him ? But he who aims to depict passion and character gains in proportion; his material is increased tenfold. The living realities of American life ought to come in among the tiresome lay-figures of average English fiction like Steven Lawrence into the London drawing-room : tragedy must resume its grander shape, and no longer turn on the vexed question whether the daughter of this or that matchmaker shall marry the baronet. It is the characteristic of a real book that, though the scene be laid in courts, their whole machinery might be struck out and the essential interest of the plot remain the same. In Auerbach's " On the Heights," for instance, the social heights might be abolished and the moral elevation would be enough. The play of human emotion is a thing so absorbing, that the petty distinctions of cottage and castle become as nothing in its presence. Why not waive these small matters in advance, then, and go straight to the real thing ? The greatest transatlantic successes which American novelists have yet attained — those won by Cooper and Mrs. Stowe — have come through a daring Americanism of subject, which introduced in each case a new figure to the European world, — first the Indian, then the negro. Whatever the merit of the work, it was plainly the theme which conquered. Such successes are not easily to be repeated, for they were based on temporary situa- tions, never to recur. But they prepare the way for higher triumphs to be won by a profounder treatment, — the introduction into literature, not of new tribes alone. AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 67 but of the American spirit. To analyze combinations of character that only our national life produces, to portray dramatic situations that belong to a clearer social atmos- phere, — this is the higher Americanism. Of course, to cope with such themes in such a spirit is less easy than to describe a foray or a tournament, or to multiply indefi- nitely such still-life pictures as the stereotyped English or French society affords ; but the thing when once done is incomparably nobler. It may be centuries before it is done : no matter. It will be done, and with it will come a similar advance along the whole line of literary labor, like the elevation which we have "seen in the whole quality of scientific work in this country within the last* twenty years. We talk idly about the tyranny of the ancient classics, as if there were some special peril about it, quite distinct from all other tyrannies. But if a man is to be stunted by the influence of a master, it makes no difference whether that master lived before or since the Chrislian epoch. One folio volume is as ponderous as another, if it crushes down the tender germs of thought. There is no great choice between the volumes of the Encyclopaedia. It is not important to know whether a man reads Homer or Dante : the essential point is whether he believes the world to be young or old ; whether he sees as much scope for his own inspiration as if never a book had ap- peared in the world. So long as he does this, be has the American spirit ; no books, no travel, can overwhelm him,* for these will only enlarge his thoughts and raise his standard of execution. When he loses this faith, he takes rank among the copyists and the secondary, and no accident can raise him to a place among the benefac- tors of mankind. He is like a man who is frightened in 68 AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. battle : you cannot exactly blame him, for it may be an aiTair of the temperament or of the digestion ; but you are glad to let him drop to the rear, and to close up the ranks. Fields are won by those who believe in the winning. A LETTER TO A YOUNG CON TRIBUTOR. A LETTER TO A YOUNG CON- TRIBUTOR- MY dear young gentleman or young lady, — for many are the Cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting, — it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so many of those who read the '^ Atlantic Monthly '' have at times the impulse to write for it also, that this epistle will be sure of perusal, though Mrs. Stowe remain uncut and the Autocrat go for an hour without readers. Far from me be the wild expectation that every author will not habitually measure the merits of a periodical by its appreciation of his or her last manuscript I should as soon ask a young lady not to estimate the manage- ment of a ball by her own private luck in respect to partners. But it is worth while at least to point out that in the treatment of every contribution the real interests of editor and writer are absolutely the same, and any antagonism is merely traditional, like the supposed hos- tility between France and England, or between England and Slavery. No editor can ever afford the rejection of a good thing, and no author the publication of a bad one. 72 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. The only difficulty lies in drawing the line. Were all of- fered manuscripts unequivocally good or bad,^here would be no great trouble ; it is the vast range of mediocrity which perplexes : the majority are too bad for blessing and too good for banning ; so that no conceivable reason can be given for either fate, save that upon the destiny of any single one may hang that of a hundred others just like it. But whatever be the standard fixed, it is equally for the interest of all concerned that it be enforced with- out fiinching. Nor is there the jslightest foundation for the supposed editorial prejudice against new or obscure contributors. On the contrary, every editor is always hungering and thirsting after novelties. To take the lead in bringing forward a new genius is as fascinating a privilege as that of the physician who boasted to Sir Henry Halford of having been the first man to discover the Asiatic cholera and to communicate it to the public. It is only stern neces- sity which compels the magazine to fall back so constantly on the regular old staff of contributors, whose average product has been gauged already ; just as every country lyceum attempts annually to arrange an entirely new list of lecturers, and ends with no bolder experiment than to substitute Gough and Beecher in place of last year's Beecher and Gough. Of course no editor is infallible, and the best magazine contains an occasional poor article. Do not blame the unfortunate conductor. He knows it as well as you do, — after the deed is done. The newspapers kindly pass it over, still preparing their accustomed opiate of sweet praises, so much for each contributor, so much for the magazine collectively, — like a hostess with her tea-mak- ing, a spoonful for each person and one for the pot. But A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 73 I can tell you that there is an official person who medi- tates and groans, meanwhile, in the night-watches, to think that in i^ome atrocious moment gf good-nature or sleepiness he left the door open and let that ungainly in- truder in. Do you expect him to acknowledge the blunder, when you tax him with it? Never, — he feels it too keenly. He will rather stand up stoutly for the surpassing merits of the misshapen thing, as a mother for her deformed child ; and as the jhother is nevertheless inwardly imploring that there may never be such another born to her, so be sure that it is not by reminding Ihe editor of this calamity that you can allure him into risk- ing a repetition. An editor thus shows himself to be but human ; and it is well enough to remember this fact, when you approach him. He is not a gloomy despot, no Nemesis or Rhada- manthus, but a bland and virtuous man, exceedingly^ anxious to secure plenty of good subscribers and contrib- utors, and very ready to perform any acts of kindness not inconsistent with this grand design. Draw near him, therefore, with soft approaches and mild persuasions. Do not treat him like an enemy, and insist on reading your whole manuscript aloud to him, with appropriate ges- tures. His time has some value, if yours has not; and . he has therefore educated his eye till it has become microscopic, like a naturalist's, and can classify nine out of ten specimens by one glance at a scale or a feather. Fancy an ambitious echinoderm claiming a private inter- view with Agassiz, to demonstrate by verbal arguments that he is a mollusk ! Bfesides, do you expect to' admin- ister the thing orally to each of the two hundred thou- sand, more or less, who turn the leaves of uie magazine ? You are writing for the average eye, and must submit to ■4 \ 74 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. its verdict " Do not trouble yourself about the light on your statue ; it is the light of the public square which must test its value." Therefore do not despise any honest propitiation, how- ever small, in dealing with your editor. Look to the physical aspect of your manuscript, and prepare your page so neatly that it shall' allure instead of repelling. Use good pens, black ink, nice white paper and plenty of it. Do not emulate "paper-sparing Pope," whose chaotic manuscript of the " Iliad," written chiefly on the backs of old letters, still remains in the British Museum. If your document be slovenly, the presumption is that its literary execution is the same. Pope to the contrary notwith- standing. An editor's eye becomes carnal, and is easily attracted by a comely outside. If you really wish to ob- tain his good-will for your production, do not first tax his time for deciphering it, any more than in visiting a mil- lionnaire to solicit a loan you would begin by asking him to pay for the hire of the carriage which takes you to his door. On the same principle, send your composition in such a shape that it shall not need the slightest literary revis- ion before printing. Many a bright production dies dis- carded which might have been made thoroughly presentable by a single day's labor of a competent scholar, in shaping, smoothing, dovetailing, and retrenching. The revision seems so slight an aifair that the aspirant cannot conceive why there should be so much fuss about it " The piece, you think, is incorrect; why, take it; I 'm all submission; what you 'd have it, make it" But to discharge that friendly office no universal genius is salaried ; and for intellect in the rough there is no market. A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR, 75 Rules for style, as for manners, must be chiefly nega- tive : a positively good style indicates certain natural powers in the individual, but a merely unexceptionable style is only a matter of culture and good models. Dr. Channing established in New England a standard of style which really attained almost the perfection of the pure and the colorless, and the* disciplinary value of such a literary influence, in a raw and crude nation, has been very great ; but the defect of this standard is that it ends in utterly renouncing all the great traditions of literature, - and ignoring the magnificent mystery of words. Hnman language may be polite and prosaic in itself, uplifted with difl&culty into expression by the high thoughts it utters, or it may in itself become so saturated with warm life and delicious association that every sentence shall palpitate and thrill with the mere fascination of the syllables. The statue is not more surely included in the block of marble than is all conceivable splendor of utterance in " TVol'cester's Unabridged." And as Ruskin says of painting that it is in the perfection and precision of the instantaneous line that Ijie claim to immortality is made, so it is easy to see that a phrase may outweigh a library^ Keats heads the catalogue of things real with " sun, moon, and passages of Shakespeare " ; and Keats himself has left behind him winged wonders of expression that were, not surpassed by Shakespeare, nor by any one else who ever dared touch the English tongue. There may be phrases which shall be palaces to dwell in, treas- ure-houses to explore ; a single word may be a window from which onc^ may perceive all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them. Oftentimes a word shall speak what accumulated volumes have labored in vain to utter : there may be years of crowded passion in a word, and half a life in a sentence. 76 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. Such being the majesty of the art you seek to practise, you can at least take time and deliberation before dis- honoring it. I)isabu3e yourself especially of the belief that any grace or flow of style can come from wtiting rapidly. Haste can make you slipshod, but it can never make you graceful. With what dismay one reads of the wonderfiil fellows in fashionable novels, who can easily dash off a brilliant essay in a single night! When I think how slowly my poor thoughts come in, how tardily they connect themselves, what a delicious prolonged per- plexity it 19 to cut and contrive a decent clothing of words for them, as a little girl does for her doll> — nay, how many new outfits a single sentence sometimes costs before it is presentable, till it seems at last, like our army on the Potomac, as if it never could be thoroughly clothed, — I certainly should never dar^ to venture into print, but for the confirmed suspicion that the greatest writers have done even thus. Do you know, my dear neophyte, how Balzac used to compose? As a specimen of the labor that sometimes goes to make an effective style, the process is worth«recording. When Balzac had a new work in view, he first spent weeks in studying from real life for it, haunting the streets of Paris by day and night, note-book in hand. His materials gained, he shut himself up till the book was written, perhaps two months, absolutely excluding everybody but his publisher. He emerged pale and thin, with the complete manuscript in his hand, — not only written, but almost rewritten, so thoroughly was the original copy altered, interlined, and rearranged. This strange production, almost illegible, ■was sent to the unfortunate printers-; with infinite dif- ficulty a proof-sheet was obtained, which, being sent to the author, was presently returned in a condition almost ^ A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR 77 as hopeless as tbat of the manuscript. Whole, sen- tences were erased, others transposed, everything mod- ified. A second and a third proof follo^'ed, alike tora to pieces by the ravenous pen of Balzac. The de- spairing printers labored by turns, only the picked men of the office being equal to the task, and they relieving each other at hourly intervals, as beyond that time no one could endure the fatigue. At last, by the fourth proof-sheet, the author too was wearied out, though not contented. *' I work ten hours out of the twenty-four," said he, " over the elaboration of my unhappy style, and I am never satisfied, myself, when all is done." Do not complain that this scrupulousness is probably wasted, after all, and that nobody knows. The public knows. People criticise far beyond what they can at- tain. When the Athenian audience hissed a public speaker for a mispronunciation, it did not follow that any one of the malcontents could pronounce as well as the orator. In our own lyceum-audiences there may not be a man who does not yield to his own private eccentricities of dialect, but see if they do yot appreciate good Eng- lish from Sumner or Phillips ! Men talk of writing down to the public taste who have never yet written up to that standard. " There never yet was a good tongue," said old Fuller, " that wanted ears to hear it." If one were expecting to be judged by a few scholars only, one might hope somehow to cajole them ; but it is this vast, unim- passioned, unconscious tribunal, this average judgment of intelligent minds, which is truly formidable. It is some- thing more undying than senates and more omnipotent than courts, something which rapidly cancels all transitory reputations, and at last becomes the organ of eternal jus- tice and awards posthumous fame. 78 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. The first demand made by the public upon every com- position is, of course, that it should be attractive. In ad- dressing a miscellaneous audience, whether through eye or ear, it is certain that no man living has a right to be tedious. Every editor is therefore compelled to insist that his contributors should make themselves agreeable, whatever else they may do. To be agreeable, it is not necessary to be amusing ; an essay may be thoroughly delightful without a single witticism, while a monotone of jokes soon grows tedious. Charge your style with life, and the public will not ask for conundrums. But the profounder your discourse, the greater must neces- sarily be the effort to refresh and diversify. I have ob- served, in addressing audiences of children in schools and elsewhere, that there is no fact so grave, no thought so abstract, but you can make it very interesting to the small people, if you will only put in plenty of detail and illus- tration ; and I have not observed that in this respect grown men are so very different. If, therefore, in writ- ing? you find it your mission to be abstruse, fight to ren- der your statement clear and attractive, as if your life depended on it : your literary life does depend on it, and, if you fail, relapses into a dead language, and becomes, like that of Coleridge, only a Biographia Literaria. Labor, therefore, not in Ihought alone, but in utterance ; clothe and reclothe your grand conception twenty times, if need be, until you find some phrase that with its grandeur shall be lucid also. It is this unwearied literary patience that has enabled Emerson not merely to introduce, but even to popularize, thoughts of such a quality as never reached the popular mind before. And when a writer, thus la- borious to do his utmost for his disciples, becomes after all incomprehensible, we can tiy to believe that it is only A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR 79 that inevitable obscurity of depth which Coleridge calls a compliment to the reader. In learning to write availably, a newspaper-office is a capital preparatory school. Nothing is so good to teach the use of materials, and to compel to pungency of style. Being always at close quarters with his readers, a jour- nalist must shorten and sharpen his sentences, or he is doomed. Yet this mental alertness is bought at a severe price > such living from hand to mouth cheapens the whole mode of intellectual existence, and it would seem that no successful journalist could ever get the newspaper out of his blood, or achieve any high literary success. For purposes of illustration and elucidation, and even for amplitude of vocabulary, wealth of accumulated ma- terials is essential; and whether this. wealth be won by reading or by experience makes no great difference. Coleridge attended Davy's chemical lectures to acquire new metaphors, and it is of no consequence whether one comes to literature from a library, a machine-shop, or a forecastle, provided he has learned to work with thorough- ness the soil he knows. Remember, however, that copi- ous preparation has its perils also, in the crude display to which it tempts. The object of high culture is not to exhibit culture, but its results. You do not put guano on your garden that your garden may blossom guano. Indeed, even for the proper subordination of one's 'own thoughts the same self-control is needed ; and there is no severer test of literary training than in the power to prune out your .most cherished sentence, when you find that the sacrifice will help the symmetry or vigor of the whole. Be noble both in the affluence and the economy of your diction ; spare no wealth that you can put in, and 80 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. tolerate no superfluity that can be struck out. Remem- ber the Lacedemonian who was fined for saying that in three words which might as well have been expressed in two. Do not throw a dozen vague epithets at a thing, in th^ hope that some one of them will fit ; but study each phrase so carefully that the most ingenious critic cannot alter it without spoiling the whole passage for everybody but himself. For the same reason do not take refuge, as was the practice a few years since, in German combinations, heart-utterances, soul-sentiments, and hy- phenized phrases generally ; but roll your thought into one good English word. There is no fault which seem^ so hopeless as commonplaceness, but it is really easier to elevate the commonplace than to reduce the turgid. How few men in all the pride of culture can emulate the easy grace of a bright woman's letter ! Have faith enough in your own individuality to keep it resolutely down for a year or two. A man has not much intellectual capital who cannot allow himself a brief interval of modesty. Premature individualism eommonly^ends .either in a reaction .against the original whims, or in a mannerism which perpetuates them. For mannerism no one is great enough, because, though in the hands of a strong man it imprisons us in novel fasci- nation, yet we soon grow weary, and. then hate our prison forever. How sparkling was Reade's crisp brilliancy in " Peg Wofi!ngton ! " — but into what disagreeable affec- tations it has since degenerated ! Carlyle was a boon to the human race, amid the tameness into which English style .was declining; but who is not tired of him and his catchwords now ? Now the age has outgrown him, and is approaching a mode of writing which unites the smooth- ness of the eighteenth century with the vital vigor of the A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 81 seventeenth, so that Sir Thomas Browne and Andrew Marvell 8e6m quite as near to us as Pope or Addison, — a style penetrated with the best spirit of Carlyle, witiiout a trace of Carlylism. Be neither too lax nor too precise in yonr use of lan- guage : the one fault ends in stiffness, the other in slang. Some one told the Emperor Xiherius that he might give citizenship to men, but not to words. To be sure, Louis XIV. in childhood, wishing for a carriage, called for mon carrosse, and made the former feminine a masculine to all future Frenchmen. But do not undertake to ex- ercise these prerogatives of royalty until you are quite sure of being crowned. The only thing I remember- in our college text-book of Rhetoric is one admirable verse of caution which it quoted : — " In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, . Alike fantastic, if too new or old; Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." Especially do not indulge any fantastic preference for either Latin or Anglo-Saxon, 'the two great wings on which our magnificent English soars and sings ; we can spare neither. The combination gives us an affluence of synonymes and a delicacy of discrimination such as no unmixed idiom can show. While you utterly shun slang, whether native or for- eign born, — at present, ,by t^e way, our popular writers use far less slang than the English, — yet tio not shrink from Americanisms, so they be good ones. American literature is 4iow thoroughly out of leading-strings r and the nation which supplied the first appreciative audience for Carlyle, Tennyson, and the Brownings, can certainly trust its own literary instincts to create the new words it 4* p 82 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. needs. To be sure, the inelegancies with which we are chiefly reproached are not distinctively American : Burke uses " pretty considerable " ; Miss Burney says, " I trembled a few " ; the English Bible says " reckon," Locke has " guess," and Southey " realize," in the exact sense in which one sometimes hears them used collo- quially here. Nevertheless, such improprieties are of course to be avoided ; but whatever good Americanisms exist, let us hold to them by all means. The diction of Emerson alone is a sufficient proof, by its unequalled range atid precision, that no people in the world ever had access to a vocabulary so rich and copious as we are ac- quiring. To the previous traditions and associations of the English tongue we add resources of contemporary life such as England cannot rival. Political freedom makes every man an individual; a vast industrial activity mak^s every man an inventor, not merely of labor-saving ma- chines, but of labor-saving words ; universal schooling popularizes all thought and sharpens the edge of all lan- guage. We unconsciously demand of our writers the same dash and the same accuracy that we demand in railroading or dry-goods jobbing. The mixture of na- tionalities is constantly coining and exchanging new feli- cities of dialect : Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Africa, are present everywhere with their various contributions of wit and shrewdness, thought and_ geniality ; in New York and elsewhere one finds whole thoroughfares of France, Italy, Spain, Portugal ; on our Western railways there are placards printed in Swedish ; even China is creeping in. The colonies of England are too far anA too provin- cial to have had much reflex influence on her literature, but how our phraseology is already amplified by our rela- tions with Spanish America I The life-blood of Mexico A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 83 flowed into our newspapers while the Mexican war was ia progress; and the gold of California glitters in our prim- ers. Many foreign cities may show a greater variety of mere national costumes, but the representative value of our immigrant tribes is far greater from the very fact that they merge their mental costume in ours. Thus the American writer finds himself among his phrases like an American sea-captain amid his crew : a medley of all nations, waiU ing for some organizing mind to mould them into a unit of force. . There are certain minor matters, subsidiary to ele- gance, if not elegancies, and therefore worth attention. Do not habitually prop your sentences on crutches, «uch as Italics and exclamation-points, but make them stand without aid ; if they cannot emphasize themselves, these devices are commonly but a confession of helplessness. Do not leave loose ends as you go on, straggling things, to be caught up and dragged along uneasily in foot-notes, but work them all in neatly, as Biddy at her bread-pan gradually kneads in all the outlying bits of dough, till she has one round and comely mass. Reduce yourself to short allowance of parentheses and dashes ; if you em- ploy them merely from clumsiness, they will lose all their proper power in your hands. Economize quotation-marks also, clear that dust from your pages, assume your read- ers to be acquainted with the current jokes and the stock epithets : all persons like the compliment of having it pre- sumed that they know something, and prefer to discover 9 the wit or beauty of your allusion without a guide-board. The same principle applies to learned citations and the results of study. Knead these thoroughly in, supplying the maximum of desired information with a minimum of ''^ visible schoolmaster. It requires no pedantic mention of y Si A LETTER TO A YOUN£} CONTRIBUTOR. • Euclid to indicate a mathematical mind, but only the «habitual use of clear terras and close connections. To employ in argument the forms of Whately's Logic would - render it probable that you are juvenile and certain that you are tedious ; wreathe the chain with roses. The more you have studied foi*eign languages, the more you will be disposed to keep Ollendorff in the background : the proper result of such acquirements is visible in a finer ear for words ; so that Goethe said, the man who had studied but one language could not know that one. But spare the raw material ; deal as cautiously in Latin as did General Jackson when Jack Downing was out of the way ; and avoid French as some fashionable novelists avoid English. Thus far, these are elementary and rather technical suggestions, fitted for the very opening of your literary career. Supposing you fairly in print, there are needed some further counsels. Do not waste a mmute, not a second, in trying to de- monstrate to others the merit of your own performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindi- cate it, but you can labor steadily on to something which needs no advocate but itself. It was said of Haydon, the English artist, that, if he had taken half the pains to paint great pictures that he took to persuade the public he had painted them, his fame would have been secure. Like his was the career of poor Home, who wrote the farthing epic of " Orion " with one grand line in it, and a prose work (without any), on " The False Medium ex- cluding Men of Genius from the Public." He spent years in ineffectually trying to repeal the exclusion in his own case, and has since manfully gone to the grazing regions in Australia, hoping there at least to find the A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 85* sheep and the goats better discriminated. Do not emu- late these tragedies. Remember how many great writers have created the taste by which they were enjoyed, and I do not be in a hurry. Toughen yourself a little, and ac- complish something better. Inscribe above your desk the words of Rivarol, " Genius is only great patience." ' It takes less time to build an avenue of shingle palaces than to hide away unseen, blocli by block, the vast foundation- stones of an observatory. Most bygone literary fames have been very short-lived in America, because they have lasted no longer than they deserved. Happening the other day to recur to a list of Cambridge lyceum-lec- ! turers in my boyish days, I find with dismay that the only name now popularly remembered is that of Emer- son: death, oblivion, or a professorship has closed over each of the others, while the whole standard of American literature has been vastly raised meanwhile, and no doubt partly through their labors. To this day, some of our most gifted writers are being dwarfed by the unkind friendliness of too early praise. It was Keats, the most precocious of all great poets, who declared that " nothing is finer for purposes of production than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers." Yet do not be made conceited by obscurity, any inore than by notoriety. Many fine geniuses have been long neglected ; but what would become of us, if all the neg- , lected were to turn out geniuses ? It is unsafe reason- " ^ ing from eitheB extreme. You are not necessarily writ- ing like Holmes because your reputation for talent began in college, nor like Hawthorne because you have been before the public ten years without an admirer. Above all, do not seek to encourage yourself by dwelling on the defects of your rivals : strength comes only from what is 86 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. above you. Northcote, the painter, said, that, in observ- ing an inferior picture, be always felt his spirits droop, with thie suspicion that perhaps he deceived himself and his own paintings might be no better than that ; but the works of the mighty masters always gave him renewed strength, in the hope that perhaps his own had in their smaller way something of the same divine quality. Do not complacently imagine, because your first literary attempt proved good and successful, that your second will doubtless improve upon it The very contrary some- times happens. A man dreams for years over one pro- jected composition, all his reading converges to it, all his experience stands related to it, it is the net result of his existence up to a certain time, it is the cistern into which he pours his accumulated life. Emboldened by success, he mistakes the cistern for a fountain, and instantly taps his brain again. The second production, as compared with the first, costs but half the pains and attains but a quarter part of the merit ; a little more of fluency and facility perhaps, — but the vigor, the wealth, the origi- nality, the head of water, in short, are wanting. One would think that almost. any intelligent man might write one good thing in a lifetime, by reserving himself long enough : it is the effort "after quantity which proves de- structive. The greatest man has passed his zenith, when he once begins to cheapen his style of work and sink into a book-maker: af\er that, though the newspapers may never hint at it, nor his admirers own it, the decline of his career is begun. Yet the author is not alone to blame for this, but also the world which first tempts and then reproves him. Goethe says, that, if a person once does a good thing, society forms a league to prevent his doing another. His A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 87 seclusion is gone, and therefore his unconsciousness and his leisure ; luxuries tempt him from his frugality, and soon he must toil for luxuries ; then, because he has done one thing well, he is urged to squander himself and do a thousand things badly. In this country especially, if one can learn languages, he must go to Congress ; if he can argue a law-case, he must become agent of a factory : out of this comes a variety of training which is very valuable, but a wise man must have strength to call in his resources before middle life, prune off divergent activities, and con- centrate himself on the main work, be it what it , may. It is shameful to see the indeterminate lives of many of our gifted men, unable to resist the temptations of a busy land, and so losing themselves in an aimless and miscel- laneous career. Yet it is unjust and unworthy in Marsh to disfigure his fine work on the English language by traducing all who now write that tongue. "None seek -the audience, fit, though few, which contented the ambition of Milton, and air writers for the press now measure their glory by their gains," and so indefinitely onward, — which is simply cant» Does a man who honestly earns his annual ten thousand dollars by writing "dime novels," take rank as head of American literaturer by virtue of his salary ? Because the profits of true literature are rising, — trivial as they still are beside those of commerce or the pro- fessions, — its merits do not necessarily decrease, but the contrary is more likely to happen ; for in this pur- suit, as in all others, cheap work is usually poor work. None but gentlemen of fortune can enjoy the bliss of writing for nothing and paying their own printer. Nor does the practice of compensation by the page work the injury that has often been ignorantly predicted. No 88 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. contributor need hope to cover two pages of a nraga- zine with what might be adequately said in one, unless, he assumes his editor to be as foolish as himself. The Spartans exiled Ctesiphon for bragging that he could speak the whole day on any subject selected; and a modern periodical is .of little Value, unless it has a Spar- tan at its head. Strive always to remember — though it does not seem . the plan of the universe that we should quite bring it home to ourselves — that " To-Day is a king in disguise," and that this American literature of ours will be just as classic a thing, if we do our part, as any which the past has treas- ured. There is a mirage over all literary associations. Keats and Lamb seem to our youhg people to be existences as remote and legendary as Homer, yet it is not an old man's life since Keats was an awkward boy at the door of Hazlitt's lecture-room, and Lamb was introducing Tal- fourd to Wordsworth as his own only .admirer. In read- ing Spence's " Anecdotes," Pope and Addison appear no further off ; and wherever I open Bacon's " Essays," I am sure to end at last with that one magical sentence, an- nihilating centuries, " When I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years." And this imperceptible transformation of the common- place present into the storied past applies equally to the pursuits of war and to the serenest works of peace. Be not miskd by the excitements of the moment * into over- rating the charms cff military life. In this chaos of uniforms, we seem to be approaching times such a^ ex- isted in England aft^r Waterloo, when the splenetic Byron declared that the only distinction was to be a little undistinguished. No doubt, war brings out grand and * Written early in 1862. A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. 89 unexpected qualities, and there is a perennial fascina- tion in the Elizabethan Raleighs and Sidneys, heroes of pen and sword. But the fact is patent, that there is scarcely any art whose rudiments are so- easy to acquire as the military ; the manuals of tactics have no difficul- ties comparable to those of thS ordinary professional text- books ; and any one who can drill a boat's crew or a ball club can learn in a very few weeks to drill a company or even a regiment. Given in addition the power to com- mand, to organize, and to execute, — high qualities, though not rare in this ccfmmunity, — and you have a inan needing but time and experience to make a general. More than this can be acquired only by an exclusive ab- sorption in this one art ; as Napoleon said, that, to have good soldiers, a nation must be always at wui*. If, therefore, duty and opportunity call, count it a priv- ilege to obtain your share in the new career; throw yourself into it as resolutely and joyously as if it were a summer campaign in the Adirondack, but never fancy for a moment that you have discovered any grander or man- lier life than you should have been leading every day at home.. It is not needful here to decide which is intrin- sically the better thing, a column of a newspaper or a column of attack, Wordsworth's "-Lines on Immortality " or Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras ; each is noble, if nobly done, though posterity seems to remember litera- ture the longest. The writer is not celebrated for hetving been the favorite of the conqueror, but sometimes the conqueror only for having favored or even for having spurned the writer. '* When the great Sultan died, his power and glory departed from him, and nothing re- mained but this one fact, that he knew not the worth of Ferdousi." There is a slight delusion in this dazzling 90 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR, glory. What a fantastic whim the young lieutenants thought it, when General Wolfe, on the eve of battle, said of Gray's " Elegy," " Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem than have taken Quebec." Yet, no doubt, it is by the memory of that remark that Wolfe will live the longest, — aided by the stray line of another poet, still reminding us, not needlessly, that ^ Wolfe*s great name 's cotemporal with our own." Once the poets and the sages were held to be pleasing triflers, fit for hours of relaxation in the lulls of war. Now the pursuits of peace are recognized as the real, and ^war as the accidentaL It interrupts all higher avoca- tions, as does the cry of fire : when the fire is extin- guished, the important affairs of life are resumed. A few years ago the London " Times " was bewailing that all thought and culture in England were suspended by the Crimean War. "We want no more books. Give us good recruits, at least five feet seven, a good model for a fioating-battery, and a gun to take efiect.at five thousand yards, — and Whigs and Tories, High and Low Church, the poets,, astronomers, and pritics, may settle it among themselves." How remote seems that epoch now ! and how remote will the present erelong appear ! while art and science will resume their sway serene, beneath skies eternal. Yesterday I turned from treatises on * gunnery and fortification to open Milton's Latin Poems, which I had never read, and there, in the " Sylvarum Liber," I came upon a passage as grand as anything in *' Paradise Lost," — his description of Plato's archetypal man, the vast ideal of the human race, eternal, incorrupt, coeval with the stars, dwelling either in the sidereal spaces, or among the Lethean mansions of souls unborn, or pacing the unexplored confines of the habitable globe. There A LETTER TO A YOUNQ CONTRIBUTOR, 91 stood the majestic image, veiled in a dead language, yet still visible ; and it was as if one of the poet's own sylvan groves had been sudjjenly cut down, and opened a view of Olympus. Then all these present fascinating trivialities of war and diplomacy ebbed away, like Greece and Rome before them, and there seemed nothing real in the universe but Plato's archetypal man. Indeed, it is the same with all contemporary notorieties. In all free governments, especially, it is the habit to over- rate the dramatis personce of the hour. How empty to us are now the names of the great American politicians of the last generation, as Crawford and Lowndes ! — yet it is but a few years since these men filled in the public ear as large a space as Clay or Calhoun afterwards, and when they died, the race of the giants seemed ended. The path to oblivion of these later idols is just as sure ; even Webster will be to the next age but a mighty tra- dition, and all that he has left will appear no more com- mensurate with his fame than is liis statue by Powers. If anything is to give longer life to the statesmen of to- day, it is only because we are engaged in a .contest of more vital principles, which may better embalm the men. Of all gifts, eloquence is the most short-lived. The most accomplished orator fades forgotten, and his laurels pass to some hoarse, inaudible Burke, accounted rather a bore during his lifetime, and possessed of a faculty of scatter- ing, not convincing, the members of the House. " After all," said the brilliant Choate", with melancholy foreboding, " a book is the only immortality." So £tiw men in any age are bom with a marked gift for literary expression, ^o few of this number have ac- cess to high culture, so few even of these have the per- sonal nobleness to use their powers well, and this small 92 A LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR. band is finally so^decimated by disease and manifold dis- aste;*, that it makes one shudder to obt^erve how little of the embodied intellect of any^*ge is left behind. Litera- ture is attar of roses, one distilled drop from a million blossoms. Think how Spain and Portugal once divided the globe between them in a treaty, when England was a petty kingdom of illiterate tribes ! — and now all Spain is condensed for us into Cervantes, and all Portugal into the fading fame of the unread Camoens. The long magnificence of Italian culture has left us- only / Quaitro Poetiy the Four Poets. -The difference between Shake- speare and his contemporaries is not that he is read twice, ten times, a hundred times as much as they : it is an ab- solute difference ; he is read, and they are only printed. Yet, if our life be immortal, this temporary distinction is of little moment, and we may learn . humility, without learning despair, from earth's evanescent glories. Who cannot bear a few disappointments, if the vista be so wide that the mute inglorious Miltons of this sphere may in some other sing their Paradise as Found? War or peace, fame or forge tfulness, can bring no real injury to one who has formed the fixed purpose to live nobly day by day. I fancy that in some other realm of existence we may look back with a kindly interest on this scene of our earlier life, and say to one another, ^S Do you re- member yonder planet, where once we went to school " ? And whether our elective study here lay chiefly in the fields of action or of thought will matter little to us then, when other schools shall have led us through other dis- ciplines. OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? y OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET ? PARIS smiled, for an hour or two, in the year 1801, when, amidst Napoleon's mighty projects for re- modelling the religion and government of his empire, the ironical satirist, Sjlvain Marechal, thrust in his " Plan for a Law prohibiting the Alphabet |o Women." Dar- ing, keen, sarcastic, learned, the little tract retains to-day so much of its pungency, that we can hardly wonder at the honest simplteity of the author's friend and biographer, Madame Gacon Dufour, who declared that he must be insane, and proceeded to prove herself so by soberly re- plying to him. His proposed statute consists of eighty-two clauses, ai^d is fortified by a " whereas " of a hundred and thirteen weighty reasons. He exhausts the range of history to show the frightful results which have followed this taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge ; quotes the Ency- clopedic, to prove that the- woman who knows the alpha- bet has already lost a portion of her innocence ; cites the opinion of Moliere, that any female who has unhappily learned anything in this line should affect ignorance, when possible ; asserts that knowledge rarely makes men at- tractive, and females never ; opines that women have no occasion to peruse Ovid's '^Art of Love," since they 96 OUGHT WOMEN know it all in advance ; remarks that three quarters of female authors are no better than they should be ; main- tains that Madame Guion would have been far more use- ful had she been merely pretty and an ignoramus, such as Nature made her, — that Ruth and Naomi could not read, and Boaz probably would never have married into the family, had they possessed, that accomplishment, — that the Spartan women did not know the alphabet, nor the Amazons, nor Penelope, nor Andromache, nor Lu- cretia, nor Joan of Arc, nor Petrarch's Laura, nor the daughters of Charlemagne, nor the three hundred and sixty-five wives of Mohammed ; but that Sappho and Madame de Maintenon could read altogether too well ; while the case of Saint Brigitta, who brought forth twelve children and tweh'^ books, was clearly exceptional, and afforded' no safe precedent. It would seem that the brilliant Frenchman touched the root of the matter. Ought women to learn the alphabet ? There the whole question lies. Concede this little fulcrum, and Archimedea will move the world -be- fore she has done with it : it becomes merely a question . of time. Resistance must be made here or nowhere. Ohsta principiis, (Woman must be a subject or an equal : there is no middle ground. What if the Chinese proverb 3hQuld turn out to be, after all, the summit of wisdom, " For men, to cultivate virtue is knowledge ; for women, to renounce knowledge is virtue " ? ^ No doubt, the progress of events is slow, like the work- ing of the laws of gravitation generally. Certainly, there has been but little change in the legal position of women since China was in its prime, until within the last dozen years. Lawyers admit that the fundamental theory of English and Oriental law is the same on this point :^Man TO LEARN THE ALPHABETt 97 and wife are one, and that one is the husband^ It is the oldest of legal traditions. When Blackstone declares that " the very being and existence of the woman is sus- pended during the marriage," and American Kent echoes that " her legal existence and authority are in a manner lost " ; when Petersdorff asserts that " the husband has the right of imposing such corporeal restraints as he may deem necessary," and Bacon that "the husband hath, by law, power and dominion over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner " ; when Mr. Justice Coleridge rules that the husband, in certain cases, " has a right to confine his wife in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite time," and Baron Alderson sums it all up tersely, " The wife is only the servant of her husband," — these high authorities simply reaffirm the dogma of the Gentoo code, four thou- sand years old and more. "A man, both day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection that she by no means be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free will, notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss." Yet behind these unchanging institutions, a pressure has been for centuries becoming concentrated, which, now that it has begun to act, is threatening to overthrow them all. It has not yet operated very visibly in the Old World, where (even in England) the majority of women have not yet mastered the alphabet, and cannot sign their own names in the marriage-register. But in this country, the vast changes of the last few years are already a matter of history. No trumpet has been sounded, no earthquake has been felt, while State after State has ushered into legal existence one half of the 5 o 98 OUGHT WOMEN popalation within its borders. Every free State in the American Union, except, perhaps, Illinois and New Jersey, has conceded to married women, in some form, the separate control of property. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania have gone further, and given them the control of their own earnings, — given it wholly and directly, that is, — while New York and other States have given it partially or indirectly. Legislative committees in Ohio and Wisconsin have recommended in printed reports the extension of the right of sufirage to women. Kentucky (like Canada) has actually extended it, in certain educational matters, and a Massachusetts 'legislative committee has suggested the same thing; while the Kansas Constitutional Convention came within a dozen votes of expunging the word male from the State Constitution.* Surely, here and now, might poor M. Mar^chal exclaim, the bitter fruits of the original seed appear. The sad question recurs, whether women ought ewHo have tasted of the alphabet fit is true that Eve ruined us all, according to theology, without knowing her letters^Still there is something to be said in defence of that venerable ancestress. The Veronese lady, Isotta Nogarola, five hundred and thirty- six of whose learned epistles were preserved by I>3 Thou, composed a dialogue on the question. Whether Adam or Eve had committed the greater sin ? But Ludovico Domenichi, in his '^ Dialogue on the Nobleness of Women,** maintains 4hat Eve did not sin at all, be- cause she was not even created when Adam was told not to eat the appl^ It is " in Adam all died," he shrewdly says ; nobody died in Eve : which looks plausible. Be that as it may, Eve's daughters are in danger of swallow- ♦ Written in 1858. TO LEARN THE ALPHABET f 99 ing a whole harvest of forbidden fruit, in these revolu- tionary days, unless something be done to cut off the supply. It has been seriously asserted, that during the last half- century more books have been written by women and about women than during all the previous uncounted ages. It may be true ; although, when we think of the innumerable volumes of Memoir es by French women of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, — each justify- ing the existence of her own ten volumes by the remark, that all her contemporaries were writing as many, — we have our doubts. As to the increased multitude of general treatises on the female sex, however, — its edu- cation, life, health, diseases, charms, dress, deeds, sphere, rights, wrongs, work, wages, encroachments, and idiosyn- crasies generally, — there can be no doubt whatever ; and the poorest of these books recognizes a condition of pub- lic sentiment of which no other age ever dreamed. Still, literary history preserves the names of some re- formers before the Reformation, in 4his matter. There was Signora Moderata Fonte, the Venetian, who left a book to be published after her death, in 1592, Dei Meriti delle Donne." There was her townswoman, Lucrezia Marinella, who followed, ten years after, with her essay, " La Nobilitk e la Eccelenza delle Donne, con Difetti e Mancamenti degli Uomini," — a comprehensive theme, truly ! Then followed the all-accomplished Anna Maria Schurman, in 1645, with her " Dissertatio de Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et meliores Literas Apti- tudine," with a few miscellaneous letters appended in Greek and Hebrew. At last came boldly Jacquette Guillaume, in 1665, and threw down the gauntlet in her title-page, ** Les Dames Illustres ^ ou par bonnes et fortes 100 OUGHT WOMEN m Haisons il se prouve que le Sexe Feminin surpasse en toute Sorte de Genre le Sexe Masculin " ; and with her came Margaret Boufflet and a host of others ; and finally, in England, Mary Wollstonecraft, whose famous book, for- midable in its day, would seem rather conservative now ; and in America, that pious and worthy dame, Mrs. H. Mather Crocker, Cotton Mather's grandchild, who, in 1848, published the first book on the " Rights of Woman " ever written on this side the Atlantic. Meanwhile there have never been wanting men, and strong men, to echo these appeals. From Corrfelius Agrippa and his essay (1509) on the excellence of woman and her pre-eminence over man, down to .the first youthful thesis of Agassiz, " Mens Feminae Viri Animo superior," there has been a succession of voices crying in the wilderness. In England, Anthony Gibson wrote a book, in 1599, called "A Woman's Woorth, defended against all the Men in the World, proving them to be more Perfect, Excellent, and Absolute in all Vertuous Actions than any Man of what Qualitie soever. Inter- larded with Poetry^ Per contra^ the learned Acidalius published a book in Latin, and afterwards in French, to prove that women are not reasonable creatures. Modern theologians are at worst merely sub-acid, and do not al- ways say so, if they think so. Meanwhile most persons have been content to leave the world to go on its old course, in this matter as in others, and have thus ac- quiesced in that stern judicial decree, with which Timon of Athens sums up all his curses upon womankind, — " If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be — as they are." Ancient or modern, nothing in any of these discussions is so valuable as the fact of the discussion itself. Hihere t TO LEARN THE ALPHABETf 101 is no discussion where there is no wrongjjsvjlothing so indicates wrong as this morbid self-inspection. The com- plaints are* perpetual protest, the defences a perpetual confession. It is too late to ignore the question ; an^, once opened, it can be settled only on absolute and per- manent principles. There is a wrong ; but where ? Does woman already know too much, or too little ? Was she created for man's subject, or his equal ? Shall she have the alphabet, or not ? Ancient mythology, which undertook to explain every- thing, easily accounted for the social and political dis- abilities of woman. Goguet quotes the story from St. Augustine, who got it from -Varro. Cecrops, building Athens, saw starting from the earth an olive-plant and a fountain, side by side. < rhe Delphic oracle said, that this indicated a strife between Minerva and Neptune for the honor of giving a name to the -«ity, and that the peo- ple must decide between them, (Cecrops thereupon as- senibled the men, and the women also, who then had a right to vote ; and the result was, that Minerva carried the election by a glorious majority of one. Then Attica was overflowed and laid waste : of course the citizens at- tributed the calamity to Neptune, and resolved to punish the women. I^ was therefore determined that in future they should not vote, nor should any child bear the name of its mothe^a^ Thus easily did mythology explain all troublesome in- consistencies. But it is much that it should even have recogniared thern, at so early an epoch, as needing ex- planation. When we ask for a less symbolical elucida- tion, it lies within our reach. At least, it is not hard to take the first steps into the mystery. There are, to be sure, some flowers of rhetoric in the way. The obstacle 102 OUGHT WOMEN to the participation of women in the alphabet, or in any other privilege, has been thought by some to be the fear of impairing her delicacy, or of destroying .her domes- ticity, or of confounding the distinction between the sexes. I doubt it. These have been plausible excuses. They have even been genuine, though minor anxieties. But the whole thing, I take it, had always one simple, intelli- gible basis, — sheer contempt for the supposed intellectual inferiority of woman. She was not to be taught, because she was not worth teaching. The learned Acidalius, aforesaid, was in the majority. According to Aristotle and the Peripatetics, Woman was animal occasionatumy as if a sort of monster and^ccidental production. * Medise- val couixcils, charit|ibly asserting her claims to the rank of humanity, still pronounced her unfit for instruction. In the Hindoo dramas, she did not even speak the same language with her master, but used the dialect of slaves. When, in the sixteenth century, Fran9oise de Saintonges wished to establish girls' schools in France, she jnras hooted in the streets ; and her father called together four doctors, learned in the law, to decide whether she was not possessed by demons, to think of educating women, — pour s'assurer quHmiruire des femmes n'etait pas un ceuvre du demon. It was the* same with political rights. The foundation of the Salic Law was not any sentimental anxiety to guard female delicacy and domesticity. It was, as stated by Froissart, a blunt, hearty contempt : " The kingdom of France being too noble to be ruled by a woman." And the same principle was reaffirmed for our own insti- tutions, in rather softened language, by Theophilus Par- sons, in his famous defence of the rights of Massachusetts men (the " Essex Result," in 1778) : « Women, what TO LEARN THE ALPHABET f 103 age soever they are of, are not considered as having a sufficient acquired discretion [to exercise the franchise].'* ' In harinony with this are the various maxims and hon-mot^ of eminent men, in respect to women. Niebuhr thought he should not have educated a girl well, — he s}^)uld have made her know too much. Lessing said, Cif The woman who thinks is like the man who puts on rouge, ridiculous/^ Voltaire said,^ Ideas are like beards : women and young men have none J* > And witty Dr. Ma- ginn carries to its extreme the atrocity i^ " We like to hear a few words of sense from a woman* as we do from a parrot, because they are so unexpected." / Yet how can we wonder at these opinions, when the samts have been severer than the sages ? — since the pious Fenelon taught that true virgin delicacy was almost as incompatible with learning as with vice ; and Dr. Channing complained, in his " Essay on Exclusion and Denunciation," of " women forgetting the tenderness of their sex/' and arguing on theology. Now this impression of feminine inferiority may be right or wrong, but it obviously doe^ good deal towards explaining the facts it assumes, (if (^ntempt does not originally cause failure, it perpetuates it. (TSystematically discourage any individual, or class, from birth to death, and they learn, in nine cases out of ten, to acquiesce in their degradation, if not to claim it as a crown of glory^ If the Abbe Ciioi^ praised the Duchesse de Fontanges for being ^ beautiful as an angel and silly as a goose," it was natural that all the young ladies of the court should resolve to make up in folly what they wanted in charms. All generations of women having been bred under the shadow of intellectual contempt, they have, of coarse, done much to justify it. They have often used 104 OUGHT WOMEN only for frivolous purposes even the poor opportunities allowed them. They have employed the alphabet, as Moliere said, chiefly in spelling the verb Amo, Their use of science has been like that of Mile, de Launay, who computed the decline in her lover's affection by his abbreviation of their evening walk in the public square, preferring to cross it rather than take the circuit; — ** From which I inferred," she says,-" that his passion had diminished in the ratio between the diagonal of a rectan- gular parallelogram and the sum of two adjacent sides." And their conception, even of art, has been too often on the scale of Properzia de Hossi, who carved sixty-five heads on a walnut, the smallest of all recorded symbols of women's sphere. All this might, perhaps, be overcome, if the social pre- judice which discourages women would only reward pro- portionately those who surmount the discouragement. The more obstacles, the more glory, if society would only pay in proportion to the labor ; but it does not. Women being denied, not merely the training which prepares for great deeds, but the praise and compensation which fol- low them, have been weakened in both directions. The career of eminent men ordinarily begins with college and the memories of Miltiades^ and ends with fortune and fame : woman begins under discouragement, and ends beneath the same. | Single, she works with half prepara- tion and half pay ; married, she puts name and wages into the keeping of her husband, shrinks into John Smith's " lady " during life, and John Smith's " relict " on her tombstone ; and still the world wonders that her I deeds, like her opportunities, are inferior, j Evidently, then, the advocates of woman's claims-— those who hold that ^^ the virtues of the man and the woman TO LEARN THE ALPHABETf 105 are the same," with Antisthenes, or that " the talent of the man and the woman is the same," with Socrates in Xenophon's " Banquet " — must be cautious lest they at- tempt to prove too much. Of course, if women know as much as men, without schools and colleges, there is no need of admitting them to those institutions. If they work as well on half pay, it diminishes the inducement to give them the other half. The safer position is, to claim that they have done just enough to show what they might have done under circumstances less discouraging. Take, for instance, the common remark, that women have in- vented nothing. It is a valid answer, that the only im- plements habitually used by woman have been the needle, the spindle, and the basket ; and tradition reports that she I^erself invented all three. In the same way it»may be shown that the departments in which women have equalled men have been the departments in which they have had equal training, equal encouragement, and equal compensation ; as, for instance, the theatre. Madame Lagrange, the prima donna^ after years of costly musical instruction, wins the zenith of professional success. She receives, the newspapers affirm, sixty thousand dollars a year, travelling expenses for ten persons, country-houses, stables, and liveries, besides an uncounted revenue of bracelets, bouquets, and hiUet-doux. Of course, every young debukxnte fancies the same thing within her own reach, with only a brief stage-vista between. On the stage there is no deduction for sex, and, therefore, woman has shown in that sphere an equal genius. But every female common-school teacher in the United States finds the enjoyment of her three hundred dollars a year to be secretly imbittered by the knowledge that the young col- lege-stripling in the next school-room is paid a thousand 5* 106 OUGHT WOMEN dollars for work no harder or more responsible than her own, and that, too, after the whole pathway of education has been obstructed for her, and smoothed for him. These may be gross and carnal considerations ; but Faith asks her daily bread, and Fancy must be fed. jWe deny woman her fair share of training, of encouragement, of remuneration, and then talk fine nonsense about her in- filincts and intuitions,' — say sentimentally with the Ori- ental proverbialist, " Every book of knowledge is im- planted by nature in the heart of woman," — and make the compliment a substitute for the alphabet./ Nothing can be more absurd than to impose entirely dis- tinct standards, in this respect, on the two sexes, or to ex- pect that woman, any more than man, will accomplish any- thing great without due preparation and adequate stimulus. -Mrs. Patten, who navigated her husband's ship from Cape Horn to California, would have failed in the effort, for all her heroism, if she had not, unlike most of her sex, been taught to use her Bowditch. Florence Nightingale, when she heard of the distresses in the Crimea, did not, as most people imagine, rise up and say, " I am a woman, ignorant but intuitive, with very little sense and informa- tion, but exceedingly sublime aspirations ; my strength lies in my weakness ; I can do all things without know- ing anything about them." Not at all. During ten years she had been in hard training for precisely such services ; had visited all the hospitals in London, Edin- burgh, Dublin, Paris,i Lyons, Rome, Brussels, and Ber- lin ; had studied under the Sisters of Charity, and been twice a nurse in the Protestant Institution at Kaisers- werth. Therefore she did not merely carry to the Crimea a woman's heart, as her stock in trade, but she knew the alphabet of her profession better than the men around TO LEARN THE ALPHABET f 107 her. Of course, genius and enthusiasm -are, for both sexes, elements unforeseen and incalculable ; but, as a general rule, great achievements imply great prepara- tions and favorable conditions. To disregard this truth is unreasonable in the abstract, and cruel in its consequences. If an extraordinary inale gymnast can clear a height of ten feet with the aid of a spring-board, it would be considered slightly absurd to ask a woman to leap eleven feet without one ; yet this is precisely what society and the critics have always done. Training and wages and social approbation are very elastic spring-boards ; and the whole course of history has seen these offered bounteously to one sex, and as sedulously withheld from the other. Let woman consent to be a doll, and there was no finery so gorgeous, no baby-house so costly, but she might aspire to share its lavish delights ; let her ask simply for an equal chance to learn, to laboi;, and to live, and it was as if that same doll should open its lips, and propound Euclid's forty-seventh proposition. While we have all deplored the helpless position of indigent women, and lamented that they had no alternative beyond the needle, the wash-tub, the school- room, and the street, we have yet resisted their admission into every new occupation, denied them training, and cut their compensation down. Like Charles Lamb, who atoned for comins late to the office in the morning by going away early in the afternoon, we have, first, half educated women, and then, to restore the balance, only half paid them. What innumerable obstacles have been placed in the way of female physicians ! what a complica- tion of difficulties has been encountered by female printers, engravers, and designers ! In London, Mr. Bennett was recently mobbed for lecturing to women on 108 OUGHT WOMEN watchmaking. In this country, we have known grave professors to refuse to address lyceums which thought fit to employ an occasional female lecturer. Mr. Comer states that it was " in' the face of ridicule and sneers " that he began to educate women as bookkeepers many years ago j and it was a little contemptible in Miss Mu- loch to revive the same satire in " A Woman's Thoughts on Wonaen," when she must have known that in half the retail shops in Paris her own sex rules the ledger, and Mammon knows no Salic law. We find, on investigation, what these considerations would lead us to expect, that eminent women have com- monly been exceptional in training and position, as well as in their genius. They have excelled the average of their own sex because they have had more of the ordi- nary advantages of the other sex. Take any department of learning or skill ; take, for instance, the knowledge of languages, the universal alphabet, philology. On the great stairway at Padua stands the statue of Elena Cor- naro, professor of six languages in that once renowned universit3\ But Elena Cornaro was educated like a boy, by her father. On the ^reat door of the University of Bologna is inscribed the epitaph of Clotilda Tambroni, the honored correspondent of Person, and the first Greek scholar of Southern Europe in lier day. But Clotilda Tambroni was educated like a boy, by Emanuele Aponte. How fine are those prefatory words, " by a Right Rev- erend Prelate," to that pioneer book in Anglo-Saxon lore, Elizabeth Elstob's grammar : " Our earthly possessions are indeed our patrimony, as derived to us by the indus- try of our fathers^ but the language in which we speak is our mother-tongue, and who so proper to play the critic in this as the females ? " But this particular female TO LEARN THE ALPHABETS 109 obtained the rudiments of her rare education from her mother, before she was eight years old, in spite of much opposition from her right reverend guardians. Adelung declares that all modern philology is founded on the translation of a Russian vocabulary into two hundred different dialects by Catherine II. But Catherine shared, in childhood, the instructors of her brother, Prince Frederick, and was subject to some reproach for learning, though a girl, so much more rapidly than he did. Christina of Sweden ironically reproved Ma- dame Dacier for her translation of Callimachus : " Such a pretty girl as you are, are you not ashamed to be so learned?" But Madame Dacier acquired Greek by contriving to do her embroidery in the room where her father was teaching her stupid brother ; and her queenly critic had.her-self learned to read Thucydides, harder Greek than Callimachus, before she was fourteen. And so down to our own day, who knows how many mute, inglorious Minervas may have perished unenlight- ened, while Margaret Fuller Ossoli and Elizabeth Bar- rett Browning were being educated " like boys." This expression simply means that they had the most solid training which the times afforded. Most persons would instantly take alarm at the very words ; that is, they have so little faith in the distinctions which Nature has established, that they think, if you teach the alpha- bet, or anything else, indiscriminately to both sexes, you annul all difference between them. The common reason- ing is thus : " Boys and girls are acknowledged to be very unlike. Now, boys study Greek and algebra, medi- cine and bookkeeping. Therefore girls should not." As if one should say : " Boys and girls are very unlike. Now, boys eat beef and potatoes. Therefore, obviously, girls should not.'' 110 OUGHT WOMEN The analogy between physical and spiritual food is precisely in point. The simple truth is, that, amid the vast range of human powers and properties, the fact of sex is but one item. Vital and momentous in itself, it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a part of it. The distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain end ; and, apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms of Nature, of minor impor- tance. With but trifling exceptions, from infusorial up to man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, listens, runs, flies, swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, in precisely the same manner as the male : all instincts, all characteristics, are the same, except as to the one solitary fact of parentage. IMr. Ten Broeck's race-horses, Pryor and Prioress, were foaled alike, fed alike, trained alike, and finally ran side by side, competing for the same prize. The eagle is not checked in soaring by any consciousness of sex, nor asks the sex of the timid hare, its quarry. Nature, for high purposes, creates and guards the sexual distinction, but keeps it subordinate to those still more important. Now, all this bears directly upon the alphabet. What sort of philosophy is that which says, " John is a fool ; Jane is a genius : nevertheless, John, being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being a woman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid?" Of course, the time is past when one would state this so frankly, though Comte comes quite near it, to say nothing of the Mormons; but this formula really lies at th^ bottom of the reasoning one hears every day. The answer is. Soul before sex. Give an equal chance, and let genius and industry do the rest. La carriere ouverte aux talens. Every man for TO LEARN THE ALPHABET f HI himself, every woman for herself, and the alphabet for us all. Thus far, my whole course of argument has been de- fensive and explanatory. I have shown that woman's inferiority in special achievements, so far as it exists, is a fact of small importance, because it is merely a corollary from her historic position of degradation. She has not excelled, because she has had no fair chance to excel. Man, placing his foot upon her shoulder, has taunted her with not rising. But the ulterior question remains behind. How came she into this attitude originally? Explain the explanation, the logician fairly demands. Granted that woman is weak because she has been systematically degraded: but why was she degraded? This is a far deeper question, — one to be met only by a profounder philosophy and a positive solution. We are coming on ground almost wholly untrod, and must do the best we can. I venture to assert, then, that woman's social inferiority in the past has been, to a great extent, a legitimate thing. To all appearance, history would have been impossible without it, just as it would have been impossible without an epoch of war and slavery. It is simply a matter of social progress, — a part of the succession of civilizations. The past has been inevitably a period of ignorance, of engrossing physical necessities, and of brute force, — not j of freedom, of philanthropy, and of culture. During that | lower epoch, woman was necessarily an inferior, degraded I by abject labor, even in time of peace, — degraded uni- \ formly by war, chivalry to the contrary notwithstanding. ; Behind all the courtesies of Amadis and the Cid lay thei stern fact,^ — woman a child or a toy. The flattering' troubadours chanted her into a poet's paradise ; but alas ! 112 OUGHT WOMEN that kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force. Tlie truth simply was, that her time had 6ot come. Physical strer>gth must rule for a time, •and she was the weaker. She was very properly re- fused a feudal grant, by reason, say " Les Coustumes de Normandie," of her unfitness for war or policy : G^est Vhomme ki se hast et hi conseille. Other authorities put it still more plainly : " A woman cannot serve^ the em- peror or feudal lord in war, on account of the decorum of her sex ; nor assist him with advice, because of her limited intellect ; nor keep his counsel; owing to the in- firmity of her disposition." All which was, no doubt, in the majority of cases, true ; and the degradation of wo- man was simply a part of a system which has, indeed, had its day, but has bequeathed its associations. From this reign of force, woman never freed herself by force. She could not fight, or would not. Bohemian an- nals, to be sure, record the legend of a literal war be- tween the sexes, in which the women's army was led by Libussa and Wlasla, and which finally ended with the capture, by the army of men, of Castle Dziewin, Maiden's Tower, whose ruins are still visible near Prague. The armor of Libussa is still shown at Vienna ; and the guide calls attention to the long-peaked toes of steel, with which he avers, the tender Princess was wont to pierce the hearts of her opponents, while careering through the bat- tle. And there are abundant instances in which women have fought side by side with men, and on equal terms. The ancient British women mingled in the wars of their husbands, and their princesses were trained to the use of arms in the Maiden's Castle at Edinburgh, ih the Isle of Skye. The Moorish wives and maidens fought in de- fence of their European peninsula ; and the Portuguese TO LEARN THE ALPHABETf 113 women fought on the same soil, against the armies of Philip 11. The king of Siam has, at present, a body- guard of four hundred woriien : they are armed with lance and rifle, are admirably disciplined, and their commander (appointed after saving the king's life at a tiger-hunt) ranks as one of the royal family, and has ten elepliants at her service. When the all-conquering Dahomian army marched upon Abbeokuta, in 1851, they numbered ten thousand men and six thousand women. The women were, as usual, placed foremost in the assault, as being most reliable : and of the eighteen hundred bodies left dead before the walls, the vast majority were of women. The Hospital of the Invalldes, in Paris, has sheltered, for half a century, a fine specimen of a female soldier, " Lieu- tenant Madame Bulan," now eighty-three years old, dec- orated by Napoleon's own hand with the cross of the Legion of Honor, and credited on the hospital-books with " seven years' service, seven campaigns, three wounds, several times distinguished, especially in Corsica, in de- fending a fort" against the English." But these cases, though interesting to the historian, are still exceptional ; and the instinctive repugnance they inspire is a condem- nation, not of women, but of war. The reason, then, for the long subjection of woman has been simply that humanity was passing through its first epoch, and her full career was to be reserved for the second. As the different races of man have appeared successively upon the stage of history, so there has been an order ef succession of the sexes. Woman's appointed era, like that of the Teutonic races, was delayed, but not omitted. It is not merely true that the empire of the past has belonged to man, but that it has properly be- longed to him ; for it was an empire of the muscles, en- H 114 OUGHT WOMEN listing, at best, but the lower powers of the understand- ing. There Qan be no question that the present epoch is initiating an empire of the higher reason of arts, af- fections, aspirations ; and for that epoch the genius of woman has been reserved. The spirit of the age has always kept pace with the facts, and outstripped the statutes. Till the fulness of time came, woman was necessarily kept a slave to the spinning-wheel and the needle ; now higher work is ready ; peace has brought invention to her aid, and the mechanical means for her emancipation are ready also. No use in releasing her till man, with his strong arm, had worked out his prelim- inary share in civilization. " Earth waits for her queen," was a favorite motto of Margaret Fuller Ossoli ; but it would be more correct to say that the queen has waited for her earth, till it could be smoothed and prepared for her occupancy. Now Cinderella may begin to think of putting on her rdyal robes. Everybody sees that the times are altering the whole material position of woman ; but most people do not ap- pear to see the inevitable social and moral changes which are also involved. As has been already said, the woman of ancient history was a slave to physical neces- sities, both in war and peace. In war she could do too little ; in peace she did too much, under the material com- pulsions which controlled the world. How , could the Jews, for instance, elevate woman? They could not spare her from the wool and the flax, and the candle that goeth not out by night. In Rome, when the bride first stepped across her threshold, they did not ask her. Do you know the alphabet? they asked simply. Can you spin ? There was no higher epitaph than Queen Ad^slI- asontha*s, — Domum servavit, lanam fecit In Boeotia, TO LEARN THE ALPHABETf 115 brides were conducted home in vehicles whose wheels were burned at the door, in token that they were never to leave the house again. Pythagoras instituted at Crotona an annual festival for the distaff; Confucius, in China, did the same for the spindle ; and these celebrated not the freedom, but the serfdom, of woman. And even into modern days this same tyrannical neces- sity has lingered. " Go spin, you jades ! go spin ! " was the only answer vouchsafed by the Earl of Pembroke to the twice-banished nuns of Wilton. Even now, travel- lers agree that throughout civilized Europe, with the partial exception of England and France, the profound absorption of the mass of women in household labors renders their general elevation impossible. But with us Americans, and in this age, when all these vast labors are being more and more transferred to arms of brass and iron ; when Rochester grinds the flour and Lowell weaves the cloth, and the fire on. the hearth has gone into black retirement and mourning ; when the wiser a virgin is, the less she has to do with oil in her lamp ; when the needle has made its last dying speech and confession in the " Song of the Shirt," and the sewing-machine has changed those doleful marches to delightful measures, — how is it possible for the blindest to help seeing that a new era is begun, and that the time has come for woman to learn the alphabet ? Nobody asks for any abolition of domestic labor for women, awy more than of outdoor labor for men. Of course, most women will still continue to be mainly occu- pied with the indoor care of their families, and most men with their external support. All that is desirable for either sex is such an economy of labor, in this respect, as shall leave some spare time to be appropriated in other 116 OUGHT WOMEN directions. The argument against each new emancipa- tion of woman is precisely tliat always made against the liberation of serfs and the. enfranchisement of plebeians, — that the new position will take them from their legiti- mate business. " How can he [or she] get wisdom that holdeth the plough [or the broom], — who«e talk is of bullocks [or of babies] ? " Yet the American farmer has already emancipated himself from these fancied incom- patibilities ; and so will the farmer's wife. In a nation where there is no leisure-class and no peasantry, this whole theory ef exclusion is an absurdity. We all have a little leisure, and we must all make the most of it. If we will confine large interests and duties to those who have nothing else to do, we must go back to monarchy at- once. If otherwise, then the alphabet, and its conse- quences, must be open to woman as to man. Jean Paul says nobly, in his **Levana," that, ** before and after being a mother, a woman is a human being, and neither maternal nor conjugal relation can supersede the human responsibility, but mu^^t become its means and instrument." And it is good to read the mainly speech, on this subject, of John Quincy Adams, quoted at length in Quincy's life of himj in which, after fully defending the political peti- tions of the women of Plymouth, he declares that "the correct principle is, thaj women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their God." There are duties devolving on every human being, — duties not small nor few, but vast and varied, — which spring from home and private life, and all their sweet re- lations. The support or care of the humblest household is a function worthy of men, women, and angels, so far as TO LEARN THE ALPHABETS 117 it goes. From these duties none must shrink, neither man nor woman ; the loftiest genius cannot ignore them ; the sublimest charity must begirf with them. They are their own exceeding great reward ; their self-sacrifice is infinite joy; and the selfisliness which discards them is repaid by loneliness an^ a desolate old age. Yet these, though the most tende/ and intimate portion of human life, do not form its whole. It is given to noble souls to crave other interests also, added spheres, not necessarily alien from these ; larger knowledge, larger action also ; duties, responsibilities, anxieties, dangers, all the aliment that history has given to its heroes. Not home less, but humanity more. When the high-born English lady in ilie Crimean hospital, ordered. to a post of almost certain death, only raised her hands to heaven, and said, '' Thank God ! " she did not renounce her true position as woman : she claimed it. When the queen of James I. of Scotland, already immortalized by him in stately verse, won a higher immortality by welcoming to her fair bosom the dagger aimed at his; wlien the Countess ofBuchaa hung confined in her iron cage, outside Berwick Castle, in penalty for crowning Robert the Bruce; when the stainless soul of Joan of. Arc met God, like Moses, in a burning flame, — these things were as they should be. Man must not monopolize these privileges of peril, birth- right of great souls. Serenades and compliments must not replace the nobler hospitality which shares with wo- man the opportunity of martyrdom. Great administra- tive duties also, cares of state, for which one should bo born gray-headed, how nobly do these sit upon a woman's brow I Each year adds to the storied renown of Eliza- beth of England, greatest sovereign of the greatest of historic nations. Christina of Sweden, alone among the 118 OUGHT WOMEN crowned beads of Earope (so says Voltaire), sustained the dignity of the throne against Richelieu and Mazarin. And these queens most assuredly did not sacrifice their womanhood in the process; for her Britannic Majesty's wardrobe included four thousand gowns; and Mile, de Montpensier declares, that when Christina had put on a wig of the latest fashion, " she really looked extremely pretty.*' Les races se feminisent^ said Buffon, — " The world is growing more feminine." It is a compliment, whether the naturalist intended it or not. Time has brought peace ; peace, invention ; and the poorest woman of to- day is bora to an inheritance such as her ancestors never dreamed, of. Previous attempts to confer on women social and 'political equality, — as when Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, made them magistrates, or when the Ilungariah revolutionists made them voters, or when our own New Jersey tried the same experiment in a guarded fashion in early times, and then revoked the privilege, because (as in the ancient fable) the women voted the wrong way, — these things were premature, and valuable t)nly as recognitions of a principle. But in view of the rapid changes now going on, he is a rash man who as- serts the " Woman Question " to be anything but a mere question of time. The fulcrum has been already given, in the alphabet, and we must simply watch, and see whether the earth does not move. # There is the. plain fact: woman must be either a sub- ject or an equal; there is no middle ground. Every concession to a supposed principle only involves the neces- sity of the next concession for which that principle calls. Once yield the alphabet, and we abandon the whole long theory of subjection and coverture : tradition is set aside, TO LEARN 'THE ALPHABET? 119 and we have nothing bat :|feason to fall back upon. Beasoning abstractly, it must /be admitted that the argu- ment has been, thus far, entirely on the women's side, inasmuch as no man has yet seriously tried to meet them with argument. It is an alarming feature of this discus- sion, that it has reversed, very generally, the traditional positions of the sexes : the women have had all the logic ; and the most intelligent men, when they have attempted the other side, have limited themselves to satire and gossip. What rational woman can be really convinced by the nonsense which is talked in ordinary society around her, — as, that it is right to admit girls to common schools, and equally right to exclude them from colleges ; that it is proper for a woman to sing in public, but indeli- cate for her to speak in public ; that a post-oflSce box is an unexceptionable place to drop a bit of paper into, but a ballot-box terribly dangerous ? No cause in the world can keep above water, sustained by such contradictions as these, too feeble and slight to be dignified by the name of fallacies. Some persons profess to think it impossible to reason with a woman, and such critics certainly show * no disposition to try the experiment But we must remember that all our American institu- tions are based on consistency, or on nothing : all claim to be founded on the principles of natural right; and when they quit those, they are lost. In all European | monarchies, it is the theory, that the mass of the people are children to be governed, not mature beings to govern themselves. This is clearly stated and consistently ap- plied. In the United States, we have formally aban- doned this theory for one half of the human race, while for the other half it still flourishes in full force. The moment the claims of woman are broached, the democrat \ 120 OUGHT WOMEN becomesjajaonarclust. What Americans commonly criti- cise in English statesmen, namely, that they habitually evade all arguments based on natural rigtit, and defend every legal wrong on the ground that it works well in practice, is the precise defect in our habitual view of woman. The perplexity must be resolved somehow. Most men admit that a strict adherence to our own prin- ciples would place both sexes in precisely equal positions before law and constitution, as well as in school and society. But each has his special quibble to apply, showing that in this case we must abandon all the general maxims to which we have pledged ourselves, and hold only by precedent. Nay, he construes even precedent with the most ingenious rigor; since the exclusion of wo- men from all direct contact with affairs can be madj far more perfect in a republic than is possible in a monarchy, where even sex is merged in rank, and the female patri- cian may have far more power than the male plebeian. But, as matters now stand among us, there is no aristoc- racy but of sex: all men are born patrician, all women are legally plebeian ; all men are equal in having politi- cal power, and all women in having none. Tiiis is a paradox so evident, and such an anomaly in human pro- gress, that it cannot last forever, without new discoveries in logic, or else a deliberate return to AL Marechal's theory concerning the alphabet. Meanwhile, as the newspapers say, we anxiously await further developments. According to present appearances, the final adjustment lies mainly in the hands of women themselves. Men can hardly be expected to concede either rights or privileges more rapidly than they are claimed, or to be truer to women than women are to each other. True, the worst effect of a condition of inferiority TO LEARN THE ALPHABET? 121 is the weakness it leaves behind it ; even when we say, ** Hands off! " the sufferer does taot rise. In such a case, there is but one counsel worth giving. More depends on determination than even on ability. Will, not talent, governs the world. From what pathway of eminence were women more traditionally excluded than from the art of sculpture, in spite of Non me Praxiteles fecity sed Anna Darner f — yet Harriet Hosmer and her sisters have climbed far up its steep ascent Who believed that a poetess could ever be more than an Annot Lyle of the harp, to soothe with sweet melodies the leisure of her lord, until in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's hands the thing became a trumpet? Where are gone tlie sneers with which army surgeons and parliamentary orators opposes^ Mr. Sidney Herbert's first proposition to send Florence Nightingale to the Crimea? In how many towns has the current of popular prejudice against female orators been reversed by one winning speech from Lucy Stone! Where no logic can prevail, success silences. First give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then sum- mon her to her career : and though men, ignorant and^ prejudiced, may oppose its beginnings, there is no danger but they will at last fiing around her conquering footsteps more lavish praises than ever greeted the opera's idol, — more perfumed fiowers than ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of the ball-room. 6 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. ► ' K A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. " Thousands were fhere, in darker fitme that dweH, Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn ; And though to me unknown, they sure fought well, Whom Rupert led, and who were British-bom.'' Detbjdi. • - I. THE MARCH. JUNE 17, 1643. LAST night the Canary wine flashed in the red Ven- ice glasses on the oaken tables of the hall ; loud voices shouted and laughed till the clustered hawk-bells jingled &om the raA^rs, while the coupled stag-hounds fawned unnoticed, and the watchful falcon whistled to himself unheard. In the carved chairs lounged groups of revellers, dressed in scarlet, dressed in purple, dressed in white and gold, gay with satins and ribbons, gorgeous with glittering chains and jewelled swords : stem, manly faces, that had been singed with powder in the Palatinate ; brutal, swarthy faces, knowing all that sack and sin could teach them ; beautiful, boyish fa$;es, fresh from ancestral homes and high-born mothers ; grave, sad faces, — sad for undoubted tyranny, grave before the greater wrong of disloyalty. Some were in council, some w^fe in strife, many were in liquor ; the parson was there with useless gravity, the jester with superfluous folly ; and in the outer ball men more plebeian drained the brown October &om pewter cans, which were beaten flat, next 126 -d CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. moment, in hammering the loud drinking-chorus on the vail ; while the clink of the armorer still went on, repair- ing the old headpieces and breastplates which had hung untouched since the Wars of the Boses ; and in the door- way the wild Welsh recruits crouched with their scythes and their cudgels, and muttered in their uncouth dialect, now a prayer to God, and now a curse for their enemy. But to-day the inner hall is empty, the stag-hounds leap in the doorway, the chaplain prays, the maidens cluster in the windows, beneath the soft beauty of the June afternoon. The streets of Oxford resound with many hoofs ; armed troopers are gathering beside chapel and quadrangle, gateway and towet*; ^the trumpeter waves his gold and crimson trappings, and blows, ^ To the Standard," — for the great flag is borne to the front, and Rupert and his men are mustering for a night of danger. With beat of drum, with clatter of hoof and rattle of spur and scabbard, tramping across old Slagdalen Bridge, cantering down the hillsides, crashing through the beech- woods, echoing through the chalky hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and feathers, worthy of the "show-troop," — others with torn laces, broken helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets ; — some eager for their first skirmish, — others weak and silent, still bandaged from the last one ; — dis- charging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed Puritan house, grim and stern as its master, — firing anon as. noisy a salute, as they pass some 'mansion where a high-born beauty dwells, — on they ride. Leaving the towers of Oxford behind them, keeping the ancient Ro- man highway, passing by the low, strong, many-gabled &rm-housesy with rustic beauties smiling at the windows A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT 127 and wiser fathers scowling at the doors, — on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are '^ Prince Robert and the hope of the nation"; — to the Puritans, they are only " Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames.'' Riding great Flanders horses, a flagon swung on one side of the large padded saddle, and a haversack on the other, — booted to the thigh, and girded with the leathern bandoleer, that supports cartridge-box and basket-hilted sword, they are a picturesque and a motley troop. Some wear the embroidered bufifcoat over the coat of mail, others beneath it, — neither having yet learned that the bufifcoat alone is sabre-proof and'bullet-proof also. Scant- ily furnished with basinet or breastplate, pot, haqueton, cuirass, pouldron, taslets, yambraces, or cuisses, — each with the best piece of iron he could secure when the ances- tral armory was ransacked, — they yet care little for the deficit, remembering, that, when they first rode down the enemy at Worcester, there was not a piece of armor on their side, while the Puritans were armed to a man. There are a thousand horsemen under Percy and O'Neal, armed with swords, pole-axes, and petronels; this in- cludes Rupert's own lifeguard of chosen men. -Lord Went- worth, with Innis and Washington, leads three hundred and fifty dragoons, — dragoons of the old style, intended to fight either on foot or on horseback, whence the name they bear, and the emblematic dragon which adorns their carbines. The advanced guard, or ** fodom hope," of a hundred horse and fifty dragoons, is commanded by Will L^gg^y Rupert's life-long friend and correspondent; and Herbert Lunsford leads the infantry, ^' the mhuman can- nibal foot," as the Puritan journals call them. There are five hundrQd of these, in lightest marching order, and carrying either pike or arquebuse, — this last being a 128 A. CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. matchlock musket, with an iron rest to sopport it, and a lance combined, to resist cavalry, — the whole being called "Swine (Swedish) feathers," — a weapon so clumsy, that the Cavaliers say a Puritan needs two years' practice to discharge one without winking. And over all these float flags of every hue and purport, from the blue and gold with its loyal ^ Ui reXj sit rex,** to the ominous crimson, flaming with a lurid furnace and the terrible motto, " Quasi ignis eonJlatorisJ* And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war, with his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stem and bronzed already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and passionate eyes, his long love- locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful scarlet cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form, which, almost alone in the army, has not yet known a wound. His high-born beauty is preserved to us forever on the canvas of Yandyck, and as the Italians have named the artist " II Pittore Cavalieresco," so will this subject of his skill remain forever the ideal of H Cava- liere Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant array, his beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him, that quadruped renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy skin has been stained by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master^ but who has thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believa him a familiar spirit, and try to destroy him " by poyson and extempore prayer, which yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym." Failing in this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be " a divell, not a very downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome white ladye^ now by art a handsome white dogge." A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 129 The Civil War is begun. The King has made his desperate attempt to arrest the ^ve members of Parlia- ment, and has been checkmated by Lucy Carlisle. So the fatal standard was reared, ten months ago, on that dismal day at Nottingham, — the King's arms, quartered with a bloody hand pointing to the crown, and the red battle- flag above ; — blown down disastrously at night, replaced sadly in the morning, to wave while the Cavaliers rallied, slowly, beneath its folds. During those long months the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success, — a success always greatest when Rupert has-been nearest. And now this night-march is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex, and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters of the Roundheads. .11., THE CONDITION OF THE TIMES. It is no easy thing to paint, with any accurate shadings, this opefiing period of the English Revolution. Looking habitually, as we do, at the maturer condition of the two great parties, we do not remember how gradual was their formation. The characters of Cavalier and Roundhead were not more the cause than the consequence of civil strife. There is no such chemical solvent as war; where it finds a mingling of two alien elements, it leaves them permanently severed. At the opening of hostilities, the two parties were scarcely distinguishable, in externals, from each other. Arms, costume, features, phrases, 6* l\ 130 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. manners, were as yet common to both sides. On the battle-field, spies could pass undetected from one aimy to the other. At Edgehill, Chalgrove, and even Naseby, men and standards were captured and rescued, through the impossibility of distinguishing between the forces. An Orange scarf, or a piece of white paper, was the most reliable designation. True, there was nothing in the Par- liamentary army so gorgeous as Sir John Suckling's troop in Scotland, with their white doublets and scarlet hats and plumes ; though that bright company substituted the white feather for the red one, in 1639, and rallied no more. Yet even the Puritans came to battle in attire which would have seemed preposterously gaudy to the plain men of our own Revolution. The London regi- ment of Hollis wore red, in imitation of the royal colors, adopted to make wounds less conspicuous. Lord Say's regiment wore blue, in imitation of the Covenanters, who took it from Numbers xv. 38; Hampden's men wore green, Lord Brooke's purple. Colonel Ballard's gray. Even the hair afforded far less distinction than we ima- gine, since there is scarcely a portrait of a leading Par- liamentarian which has not a display of tresses such as would now appear the extreme of foppery ; and when the remains of Hampden himself were disinterred^ within half a century, the body was at first taken for a woman's, from the exceeding length and beauty of the hair. But ev6ry year of warfare brought a change. On the King's side, the raiment grew more gorgeous amid mis- fortunes; on the Parliament's, it became sadder with every success. The Royalists took up feathers and oaths in proportion as the Puritans laid them down ; and as the- tresses of the Cavaliers waved more luxuriantly, the hair of the Roundheads was more scrupulously, shorn. 'A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT, 131 And the same instinctive exaggeration was constantly ex- tending into manners and morals also. Both sides be- came ostentatious ; the one made the most of its dissolute- ness, and the other of its decorum. The reproachful names applied derisively to the two parties became fixed distinctions. The word " Soundhead " was first used early in 1642, though whether it originated with Henri- etta Maria or with David Hyde is disputed. And Charles, in his speech before the*battle of Edgehill, in October of the same year, mentioned the name " Cava- lier" as one bestowed ^'in a reproachful sense," and one ^' which our enemies have striven to make odious." And all social as well as moral prejudices gradually identified themselves with this party division. As time passed on, all that was high-bom in England gravitated more and more to the royal side, while the popular cause enlisted the Londoners, the yeomanry, and those country gentlemen whom Mrs. Hutchinson styled the "worsted-stocking members." The Puritans gradually found themselves excluded from the manorial halls, and the Cavaliers (a more inconvenient privation) from the black- smiths' shops. Languishing at first under aristocratic leadership, the cause of the Parliament first became strong when the Self-denying Ordinance abolished all that weakness. Thus the very sincerity of the civil con- flict drew the lines deeper; had the battles been fought by mercenaries, like the contemporary Continental wars, there would have grown up a less hearty mutual antipathy, but a far more terrible demoralization. As it was, the character of the war was, on the whole, humane ; few towns were sacked or destroyed, the harvests were bounteous and freely gathered, and the population in- creased during the whole period. But the best civil war' 132 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERf. is fearfully injurious. In this case, virtues and vices were found on both sides ; and it was only the gradual preponderance which finally stamped on each party its own historic reputation. The Cavaliers confessed to ** the vices of men, — love of wine and women " ; but they charged upon their opponents " the vices of devils, — hypocrisy and spiritual pride." Accordingly, the two verdicts have been recorded in the most delicate of all registers, — language.* For the Cavaliers added to the English vocabulary the word plundery and the Puritans the word cant Yet it is certain that at the outset neither of these peculiarities was monopolized by either party. In abun- dant instances, the sins changed places, — Cavaliers canted, and Puritans plundered. That is, if by eant we understand the exaggerated use of Scripture language which originated with the reverend gentleman of that Dame, it was an offence in which both sides participated. Clarendon, reviewing the Presbyterian discourses, quoted text against text with infinite relish. Old Judge Jenkins, could he have persuaded the " House of Rimmon," as he called Parliament, to hang him, would have swung the Bible triumphantly to his neck by a ribbon, to show the nnscriptural character of their doings. Charles himself, in one of his early addresses to his army, denounced the op- posing party as '* Brownists, Anabaptists, and Atheists,'' and in his address to the city of London pleaded in favor of his own "godly, learned,- and painfull preachers.'* Every royal regiment had its chaplain, including in the service such men as Pearson and Jeremy Taylor, and they had prayers before battle, as regularly and seriously as their opponents. " After solemn prayers at the head of every division, I led my part away," wrote the virtuous r A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 133 Sir Bevill Grenvill to his wife, after the battle of Bradock. Rupert, in like manner, had prayers before every division at Marston Moor. To be sure, we cannot always vouch for the quality of these prayers, when the chaplain hap- pened to be out of the way and the colonel was his sub- stitute. " O Lord," petitioned stout Sir Jacob Astley, at Edgehill, " thou knowest how busy I must be this day ; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me ! " — after which he .,. rose up, crying, " March on, boys I " ^7 And as the Puritans had not the monopoly of prayer, ^' 80 the Cavaliers did not monopolize plunder. Of course, when civil war is once begun, such laxity is mere matter of self-defence. If the Royalists -unhorsed the Round- heads, the latter must horse themselves again as best they could. If Goring " uncattled " the neighborhood of London, Major Medhope must be ordered to " uncattle " the neighborhood of Oxford. Very possibly individual animals were identified with the right side or the wrong side, to be spared or confiscated in consequence ; — as in modern Kansas, during a similar condition of things, one might hear men talk of a proslavery colt, or an antislavery cow. And the precedent being established, each party could use the smallest excesses of the other side to palliate the greatest of its own. No use for the King to hang two of Rupert's men for stealing, when their*commander could urge in extenuation the plunder of the house of Lady Lu- cas, and the indignities offered by the Roundheads to the Countess of Rivers. Why^ spare the churches as sanctu- aries for the enemy, when rumor accused that enemy (right or wrong) of hunting cats in those same churches with hounds, or baptizing dogs and pigs in ridicule of the conse- crated altars? Setting aside these charges as questionable, we cannot so easily dispose of the facts which rest on actual 134 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. Puritan testimony. K, even after the Self-denying Ordi- nance, the "Perfect Occurrences" repeatedly report soldiers of the Puritan army as cashiered for drunken- ness,, pilfering, cheating inn-keepers, and insulting wo- men, it is inevitable to infer that in earlier and less stringent times they did the same unpunished. When Mrs. Hutchinson describes a portion of the soldiers on her own side as " licentious, ungovernable wretches," — when Sir Samuel Luke, in his letters, depicts the glee with which his men plunder the pockets of the slain, — when poor John Wolstenholme writes to head-quarters that his own compatriots have seized all his hay and horses, " so that his wife cannot serve Grod with the congregation but in frosty weather," — when Vicars in " Jehovah Jireh " exults over the 'horrible maiming and butchery wrought by the troopers upon the officers' wives and female camp- followers at Naseby, — it is useless to attribute exaggera- tion to the other side. In civil war, even the most humane, there is seldom much opening for exaggeration, — the actual horrors being usually quite as vivid as any imagi- nations of the sufferers, especially when, as in this case, the spiritual instructors preach, on the one side, from " Curas ye Meroz," and, on the other side, from ** Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." These things should be mentioned, not so much because they are deliberately denied by anybody, as because they are apt to be overlooked by those who take their facts at second-hand. All this does not show that the Puritans had, even at the outset, worse men or a cause no better ; it simply shows that war demoralizes, and that right- thinking men may easily, under its influence, slide into rather reprehensible practices. At a later period the evil worked its own cure among the Puritans, and the A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 135 armj of Cromwell was- a moral trmmph almost incred- ible ; but at the time of which we write, the distinction was but lightly drawn. It would be easy to go further and show that among the leading Parliamentary states- men there were gay and witty debauchees, — that Harry Marten deserved the epithet with which Cromwell saluted him, — that Pym succeeded to the regards of Strafford's bewitching mistress, — that Warwick was truly, as Claren- don describes him, a profuse and generous profligate, tol- erated by the Puritans for the sake of his earldom* and his bounty, at a time when bounty was convenient and peers were scarce. But it is hardly worth while further to illustrate the simple and intelligible fact, that there were faults on both sides. Neither war nor any other social phenomenon can divide infallibly the sheep from the goats, nor collect all the saints under one set of staff- officers and all the sinners i:inder another. But, on the other hand, the strength of both sides, at this early day, was in a class of serious and devoted men, who took up the sword so sadly, in view of civil strife, that victory seemed to them almost as terrible as defeat. In some, the scale of loyalty slightly inclined, and they held with the King ; in others, the scale of liberty, and they served the Parliament ; in both cases, with the same noble regrets at first, merging gradually into bitter aliena- tion afterwards. " If there could be an expedient found to solve the punctilio of honor, I would not be here an hour," wrote Lord Robert Spencer to his wife, from the camp of the Cavaliers. Sfr Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer, disapproved of the royal cause, and ad- hered to it only because he " had eaten the King's* bread." Lord Falkland, Charles's Secretary of State, "sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silende and frequent 136 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. sighs, would, with a shriek and sad accent, ingeminate the words, Peace ! Peace ! " and would prophesy for himself that death which soon came. And these words find their parallels in those of men honored among the Puritans, as when Sir William Waller wrote from his camp to his chivalrous opponent, Sir Ralph Hopton, "The great God, who is the searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I go upon this service." . As time passed on, the hostility between the two parties exceeded all bounds of courteous intercourse. The social distinction was constantly widening, and so was the re- ligious antagonism. Waller could be allowed to joke with Goring and sentimentalize with Hopton, — for Wal- ler was a gentleman, though a rebel ; but it was a different thing when the Puritan gentlemen were seen to be grad- ually superseded by Puritan clowns. Strafford had early complained of " your Prynne^, Pims, and Bens, with the rest of that generation of odd names and natures." But what were these to the later brood, whose plebeian quality Mr. Buckle has so laboriously explored, — Gbffe the grocer and Whalley the tailor. Pride the drayman and Venner the cooper, culminating at last in Noll Cromwell the brewer ? The formidable force of these upstarts only imbittered the aversion. If odious when vanquished, what must they have been as victors ? For if it be dis- agreeable to find a foeman unworthy of your steel, it is much more unpleasant when your steel turns out un- worthy of the foeman ; and if sad-colored Puritan rai- ment looked absurd upon the persons of fugitives, it must have been very particularly unbecoming when worn by conquerors. And the growing division was constantly aggravated by very, acid satire. The Court, it must be remembered, was A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 13? more than half French in its general character and tone, while every Frenchman of that day habitually sneered at every Englishman as dull and inelegant. The dazzling wit that flashed for both sides in the French civil wars flashed for one only in the English; the Puritans had no comforts of that kind, save in some caustic repartee from Harry Marten, or some fearless sarcasm from Lucy Car- lisle. But the Cavaliers softened labor and sweetened care with their little jokes. It was rather consoling to cover some ignominious retreat with a new epigram on Cromwell's red nose, that irresistible member which kin- dled in its day as much wit as Bardolph's, — to hail it as " Nose Immortal," a beacon, a glow-worm, a bird of prey, — to make it stand as a personification of the rebel cause, till even the gtately Montrose asked new-comers from Eng- land, " How is Oliver's nose ? " It was very entertaining to christen the Solemn League and Covenant '^ the con- stellation on the back of Aries," because most of the signers could only make their marks on the little bits of sheepskin circulated for that purpose. It was quite lively to rebaptize Bundway Down as Bun-away-down, after a royal victory, and to remark how Hazlerig's regiment of " lobsters " turned to crabs, on that occasion, and crawled backwards. But all these pleasant follies became whips to scourge them, at last, — shifting suddenly into very grim earnest when the Royalists themselves took to running away, with truculent saints, in steeple-hats, behind them. Oxford was the stronghold of the Cavaliers, in these times, as that of the Puritans was London. The Court itself (though here we are anticipating a little) was trans- ferred to the academic city. Thither came Henrietta Maria, with what the pamphleteers called " her Battle- headed Parliament of Ladies," the beautiful Duchess of 138 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. Richmond, the merry Mrs. Kirke, and brave Kate D'Au- bigny. In Merton College the Queen resided ; at Oriel the Privy Council was held ; at Christ Church the King and Rupert were quartered ; and at All Souls Jeremy Tay- lor was writing his beau-tiful meditations, in the intervals of war. In the New College quadrangle, the students were drilled to arms " in the eye of Doctor Pink," while Mars and Venus kept undisturbed their ancient reign, although transferred to the sacred precincts of Magdalen. And amidst the passion and. the pomp, the narrow streets would suddenly ring with the trumpet of some foam-cov- ered scout, bringing tidings of perilous deeds outside ; while some traitorous spy was being hanged, drawn, and quartered in some other part of the city, for betraying the secrets of the Court. And forth from the. outskirts of Oxford rides Rupert on the day we are to describe, and we must still protract our pause a iittle longer to speak of him. Prince Rupert, Prince Robert, or Prince Robber,— for by all these names was he known, — was the one formidable military leader on the royal side. He was not a statesman, for he was hardly yet a mature man ; he was not, in the grandest sense, a hero, yet he had no quality that was not heroic. Chivalrous, brilliant, honest, generous, — not . dissolute, nor bigoted, nor cruel, — he was still a Royalist for the love of royalty, and a soldier for the love of war, — and in civil strife there can hardly be a more dangerous character. Through all the blunt periods of his military or civil proclamations, we see the proud, careless boy, fighting for fighting's sake, and al- ways finding his own side the right one. He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents ; he certainly had none at all for those who (as he ^aid) A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 139 printed malicious and lying pamphlets against him " al- most every morning," in which he found himself saluted as a " nest of perfidious vipers," " a night-flying dragon prince," " a flapdragon," " a caterpillar," " a spider," and " a butterbox." He was the King's own nephew, — great-grandson of William the Silent, and son of that Elizabeth Stuart from whom all the modem royal family of England descends. His sister was the renowned Princes Palatine, the one favorite pupil of Descartes, and the chosen friend of Leibnitz, Malebranche, and William Penn. From early childhood he was trained to war ; we find him at fourteen pronounced by his tutors fit to command an army, — at fifteen, bearing away the palm in one of the last of the tournaments, — at sixteen, fighting beside the young Tu- renne in the Low Countries, — at nineteen, heading the advanced guard in the army of the Prince of Orange, — and at twenty-three we find him appearing in England, the day before the royal standard was reared, and the day after the King lost Coventry. This training made him a general, — not, as many have supposed, a mere cavalry- captain ; — he was one of the few men who have shown great military powers on both land and sea ; he was a man of energy unbounded, industry inexhaustible, and the most comprehen^ve and systematic forethought. It was not merely, that, as Warwick said, "he put that spirit into the King's army that all men seemed resolved," — not merely, that, always charging at the head of his troops, he was never wounded, and that, seeing more service than any of his compeers, he outlived them all. But even in these early years, before he was generalissimo, the Par- liament deliberately declared the whole war to be " man- aged by his skill, labor, and industry," and his was the 140 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. odIj name habitually printed in capitals in the Puritan newspapers. He had to create soldiers by enthusiasm, and feed them by stratagem, — to toil for a king who feared him, and against a queen who hated him, — to take vast responsibilities alone, — accused of negligence, if he failed, reproached with license, if he succeeded. Against him he had the wealth of London, intrusted to men who were great diplomatists, though new to power, and great soldiers, though they had never seen a battle- field till middle life ; on his side he had only unmanage- able lords and penniless gentlemen, who gained victories by daring, and then waited them by license. His troops had no tents, no wagons, no military stores ; they used those of the enemy. Clarendon says, that the King's cause labored under an incurable disease of want of money, and that the only cure for starvation was a vic- tory. To say, therefore, that Rupert's men never starved, is to say that they always conquered, — which, at this early period, was true. He was the best shot in the army, and the best tennis- player among the courtiers, and Pepys calls him " the boldest attacker in England for personal courage." Seemingly without reverence or religion, he yet as- cribed his defeats to Satan, and, at the close of a letter about a marauding expedition, requested his friend Will Legge to pray for him. Versed in all the courtly society of the age, chosen interpreter for the wooing of young Prince Charles and La Grande Mademoiselle, and mourn- ing in purple, with the royal family, for Marie de Medi- cis, he could yet mingle in any conceivable company and assume any part. He penetrated the opposing camp at Dunsmore Heath as an apple-seller, and the hostile town of Warwick as a dealer in cabbage-nets, and the pamph- A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 141 leteers were never weary of describing his disguises. He was charged with all manner of offences, even to slaying children with cannibal intent, and only very carelessly disavowed such soil impeachments. But no man could deny that he was perfectly true to his word ; he never forgot one whom he had promised to protect, and, if he had promised to strip a man's goods, he did it to the ut- termost farthing. And so must his pledge of vengeance be redeemed to-night ; and so, riding eastward, with the dying sunlight behind him and the quiet Chiltem hills before, through air softened by the gathering coolness of these midsummer eves, beside clover fields, and hedges of wild roses, and ponds white with closing water-lilies, and pastures sprinkled with meadow-sweet, like foam, — he muses only of the clash of sword and the sharp rattle of shot, and all the passionate joys of the coming charge. III. THE FORAY. The long and picturesque array winds onward, cross- ing Chiselhampton Bridge (not to be recrossed so easily), avoiding Thame with its church and abbey, where Lord- General Essex himself is quartered, unconscious of their march; and the Cavaliers are soon riding beneath the bases of the wooded hills towards Postcombe. Near Tets worth, the enemy's first outpost, they halt till even- ing; the horsemen dismount, the flagon and the foraging- bag are opeAed, the black-jack and the manchet go round, healths are drunk to successes past and glories future, to " Queen Mary's eyes," and to " Prince Rupert's dog." A 142 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. few hours bring darkness ; they move on eastward through the lanes, avoiding, when possible, the Roman highways ; they are sometimes fired upon by a picket, but make no return, for they are hurrying past the main quarters of the enemy. In the silence of the summer night, they stealthily ride miles and miles through a hostile country, the renegade Urry guiding them. At early dawn, they see, through the misty air, the low hamlet of Postcombe, where the " beating up of the enemy's quarters " is to begin. A hurried word of command ; the infantry halt ; the cav- alry close and sweep down like night-hawks upon the sleeping village, — safe enough, one would have supposed, with the whole Parliamentary army lying between it and Oxford, to protect from danger. Yet the small party of Puritan troopers awake in their quarters with Rupert at the door; it is well for them that they happen to be picked men, and have promptness, if not vigilance ; form- ing hastily, they secure a retreat westward through the narrow street, leaving but few prisoners behind them. As hastily the prisoners are swept away with the stealthy troop, who have other work before them ; and before half the startled villagers have opened their lattices the skir- mish is over. Long before they can send a messenger up, over the hills, .to sound the alarm-bells of S token Church, the swift gallop of the Cavaliers has reached Chinnor, two miles away, and the goal of their'foray. The compact, strongly built village is surrounded. They form a parallel line behind the houses, on each side, leaping fences and ditches to their posts. They break down the ii'on chains stretched nightly across each end of the street, and line it from end to end. Rupert, Will Legge, and the " forlorn hope," dismounting, rush in upon the quar- ters, sparing only those who surrender. A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 143 In ^ve minutes the town is up. The a'wakened troopers fight as desperately as their assailants, some on foot, some on horseback. More and more of Rupert's men rush in ; they fight through the straggling street of the village, from the sign of the Ram at one end to that of the Crown at the other, and then back again. The citizens join against the invaders, the 'prentices rush from their attics, hasty barricades of carts and harrows are formed in the streets, long musket-barrels are thrust from the windows, dark groups cluster on the roofs, and stones begin to rattle on the heads below, together with phrases more galling than stones, — ^ hurled down by women, — " cursed dogs," " devilish Cavaliers," '* Papist traitors." In return, the intruders shoot at the windows indiscriminately, storm the doors, fire the houses^ they grow more furious, and spare nothing; some towns-people retreat within the church-doors ; the doors are beaten in ; women barricade them with wool-packsj and fight over .them with muskets, barrel to barrel. Outside, the troopers ride round and round the town, seizing or slaying all who escape ; with- in, desperate men still aim from then- windows, though the houses on each side are in flames. Melting lead pours down from the blazing roofs, while the drum still beats and the flag still advances. It is struck down presently ; tied to a broken pike-stafl*, it rises again, while a chaos of armor and plumes, black and orange, blue and red, torn laces and tossing'feathers, powder-stains and blood-stains, fills the dewy morning with terror, and opens the June Sunday with sin. Threescore and more of the towns-people are slain, sixscore are led away at the horses' sides, bound with ropes, to be handed over to the infantry for keeping. Some of these prisoners, even of the armed troopers, are 144 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. so ignorant and unwarlike as yet, that thej know not the meaning of the word " quarter," refusing it when offered, and imploring " mercy " instead. Others are little chil- dren, for whom a heavy ransom shall yet be paid. Oth- ers, cheaper prisoners, are ransomed on the spot Some plunder has also been taken, but the soldiers look long- ingly on the larger wealth that miist be left behind, in the hurry of retreat, — treasures that otherwise no trooper of Rupert's would have spared: scarlet cloth, bedding, saddles, cutlery, ironware, hats, shoes, hops for beer, and books to sell to the Oxford scholars. But the daring which has given them victory now makes their danger ; — they have been nearly twelve hours in the saddle and have fought two actions ; they have twenty-five miles to ride, with the whole force of the enemy in their path ; they came unseen in the darkness, they must return by daylight and with the alarm already given; Stoken church-bell has been pealing for hours, the troop from Postcombe has fallen back on Tetsworth, and everywhere in the distance videttes are hurrying from post to post. The perilous retreat begins. Ranks are closed ; they ride silently ; many a man leads a second horse beside him, and one bears in triumph the great captured Puritan standard, with its five buff Bibles on a black ground. They choose their course more carefully than ever, seek the by-lanes, and swim the rivers with their swords be- tween their teeth. At one point, in their hushed pro- gress, they hear the sound of rattling wagons. There is a treasure-train within their reach, worth twenty-one thousand pounds, and destined for the Parliamentary camp, but the thick woods of the Chilterns have sheltered it from pursuit, and they have not a moment to waste ; they are riding for their lives. Already the gathering A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 146 parties of Roundheads are closing upon them, nearer and • nearer, as they approach the most perilous point of the wild expedition, — their only return-path across the Cher- well, — Chiselhampton 'Bridge. Percy and 0*Neal with difficulty hold the assailants in check; the case grows desperate at last, and Rupert stands at bay on Chalgrove Field. It is Sunday morning, June 18, 1643. The early church-bells are ringing over all Oxfordshire, — dying away in the soft air, among the sunny English hills, while -Englishmen are drawing near one another with hatred in their hearts, — dying away, as on that other Sunday, eight months ago, when Baxter, preaching near Edgehill, heard the sounds of battle, and disturbed the rest of his saints by exclaiming, "To the fight!" But here are no warrior-preachers, no bishops praying in surplices on the one side, no dark-robed divines preaching on horseback on the other, no king in glittering armor, no Tutor Harvey in peaceful meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circiiilation of the blood, with hotter blood flowing so near him ; all these were to be seen at Edgehill, but not here. This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts to Cisatlantic associations ; its date suggests Bunker's Hill, — and its circumstances, Lexing- ton. For this, also, is a marauding party, with a Percy among its officers, brouglTt to a stand by a half-armed and an angry peasantry. Rupert sends his infantry forward, to secure the bridge, and a sufficient body of dragoons to line the mile and a half of road between, — the remainder of the troops being drawn up at the entrance of a cornfield, several hundred acres in extent, and lying between the villages and the hills. The Puritans take a long circuit, endeav- 7 J 146 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. oring to get to windward of their formidable enemy, — a point jadged as important, during the seventeenth cen- tury, in a land fight as in a naval engagement. They have with them some light field-pieces, artillery being the only point of superiority they yet daim ; but these are not basilisks, nor falconets, nor culverins {colubrt, cotdeuvrei)^ nor drakes (drttcanes)^ nor warning-pieces, -— they are the leathern guns of Gustavus Adolphus, made of light cast-iron and bound with ropes and leather. The Round* head dragoons, dismounted, line a hedge near the Cava- liers, and plant their ^ swine-feathers " ; under cover of their fire the horse advance in line, matches burning. As they advance, one or two dash forward, at risk of their lives, flinging off the orange scarfs which alone dis- tinguish them, in token that they desert to the royal cause. Prince Rupert falls back into the lane a little, to lead the other forces into his ambush of dragoons. These tactics do not come naturally to him, however ; nor does he like the practice of the time, that two bodies of cav- alry should ride up within pistol-shot of each other, and exchange a volley before they charge. He rather antici- pates, in his style of operations, the famous order of Fred- erick the Great : " The King hereby forbids all ofiicers of cavalry, on pain of being broke with ignominy, ever to allow themselves to be attacked in any action by the enemy; but the Prussians must always attack them." Accordingly he restrains himself for a little while, chafing beneath the delay, and then, a soldier or two being sud- denly struck down by the fire, he exclaims, '' Yea ! this insolency is not to be endured.'* The moment is come. " God and Queen Mary 1 " shouts Rupert ; " Charge ! " In one instant that motionless mass becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible sweep it comes, silence be- A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. U^ hind it and despair before ; no one notices the beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array, — all else is merged in the fury of the wild gallop ; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped, heads bent ; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the hand ; the uneven ground breaks their ranks, — no matter, they feel that they can ride down the world : Rupert first clears the hedge, — he is always first, — then comes the captain of his life-guard, then the whole troop "jumble after them," in a specta- tor's piquant phrase. The di-moimted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since Worcester," — that is, now they stand it an instant, then they did not stand it at all ; the Prince takes them in fiank and breaks them in pieces at the first encounter, — the very wind of the charge shatters them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not exhausted, by the weary night, — they seem incapable of fatigue ; they spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan, surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his name. One Cavalier bends, with a wild oath, to search the pockets of a slain enemy ; — it is his own brother. O'Neal slays a stand- ard-bearer, and thus restores to his company the right to bear a flag, — anght they lost at Hopton Heath; Legge is taken prisoner and escapes ; Urry proves, himself no coward, though a renegade, and is trusted to bear to Ox- ford the news of the victory, being raised to knighthood in return. 148 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. For a victory of course it is. Nothing in England can yet resist these high-born, dissolute, reckless Cavaliers of Rupert's. " I have seen them running up walls twenty feet high/' said the engineer consulted by the frightened citizens of Dorchester ; " these defences of yours may possibly keep them out half an hour." Darlings of triumphant aristocracy, they are destined to meet with no foe that can match them, until they recoil at last be- fore the plebeian pikes of the Loudon train-bands. Nor can even Rupert's men claim to monopolize the courage of the King's party. The brilliant "show-troop" of Lord Bernard Stuart, comprising the young nobles hav- ing no separate command, — a troop which could afford to indulge in all the gorgeousness of dress, since their united incomes, Clarendon declares, would have exceeded those of the whole Puritan Parliament, — led, by their own desire, the triumphant charge at Edgehill, and threescore of their bodies were found piled on the spot where the Royal Standard was captured and rescued. Not less faithful were the Marquis of Newcastle's " Lambs," who took their name from the white woollen clothing which they refused to have dyed, saying that their hearts' blood would dye it soon enough ; and so it did : only thirty sur- vived the battle of Marston Moor, and the bodies of the rest were found in the field, ranked regularly side by side, in death as in life. But here at Chalgrove Field no such fortitude of en- d'urance is needed : the enemy are scattered, and, as Ru- pert's Cavaliers are dashing on, in their accustomed headlong pursuit, a small, but fresh force of Puritan cavalry appears behind the hedges and charges on them from the right, — two troops, hastily gathered, and in various garb. They are headed by a man in middle life A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 149 and of noble aspect : once seen, he cannot easily be for- gotten ; but seen he will never be again, and, for the last time, Rupert and Hampden meet face to face. The foremost representative men of their respective parties, they scarcely remember, perhaps, that there are ties and coincidences in their lives. At the marriage of Rupert's mother, the student Hampden was chosen to write the Oxford epithalamium, exulting in the prediction of some noble offspring to follow such a union. Rupert is about to be made General-in-Chief of the Cavaliers ; Hampden is looked to by all as the future General-in- Chief of the Puritans. Rupert is the nephew of the King, — Hampden the cousin of Cromwell ; and as the former is believed to be aiming at the Crown, so the latter is the only possible rival of Cromwell for the Protectorate, — " the eyes of all being fixed upon Irim as their pater patinte.** But in ail the greater qualities of manhood, how far must Hampden be placed above the magnificent and gifled Rupert ! In a congress of natural noblemen — for such do the men of the Commonwealth appear — he must rank foremost It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in speaking of these men, — men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose words are unsur- passed by. Greek or Roman fame, — men whom even Hume can only criticise for a " mysterious jargon " which most of them did not use, and fbr a " vulgar hypocrisy " which few of them practised. Let us not underrate the self- forgetting loyalty of the Royalists, — the Duke of Newcastle laying at the King's feet seven hundred thou- sand pounds, and the Marquis of Worcester a million ; but the sublimer poverty and abstinence of the Parlia- mentary party deserve a yet loftier meed, — Vane sur- rendering an office of thirty thousand pounds a year to 160 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. promote public economy, -^ Hutchinson refusing a peer- age and a fortune as a bribe to hold Nottingham Castle a little while for the King, — Eliot and Pjm bequeathing their families to the nation's justice, having spent their all for the good cause. And rising to yet higher attri- butes, as they pass before us in the brilliant paragraphs of the courtly Clarendon, or the juster modern estimates of Forster, it seems like a procession of bom sovereigns ; while the more pungent epithets of contemporary wit only familiarize, but do not mar, the fame of Cromwell (Cleaveland's " Caesar in a Clown "), — '* William the Con- queror " Waller, — " young Harry " Vane, — ** fiery Tom** Fairfax, — and ^ King Pym." But among all these there is no peer of Hampden, of him who came not from courts or camps, but from the tranquil study of his Davila, — from that thoughtful retirement which was for him, as for his model, Coligny, the school of all noble virtues, — came to find himself at once a statesman and a soldier, receiving from his contemporary, Clarendon, no affectionate critic, the triple crown of historic praise, as being << the most able, resolute, and popular person in the kingdom." Who can tell how changed the destiny of England, had the Earl of Bedford's first compromise with the country party succeeded, and Hampden become the tutor of Prince Charles, — or could this fight at Chalgrove Field issue differently, and Hampden survive to be general instead of Essex, and Protector in place of Cromwell ? But that may not be. Had Hampden's earlier counsels prevailed, Rupert never would have ventured on his night foray; had his next suggestions been followed, Rupert never would have returned from it. Those failing, Hamp- den has Come, gladly followed by Gunter and his dra- goon% outstripping the tardy Essex, to dare all and die* A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 151 In vain does Gunter perish beside his flag ; in vain does Crosse, bis horse being killed under him, spring in the midst of battle on another; in yain does ^'that great- spirited little Sir Samuel Luke " (the original of Hudi- bras) get thrice captured and thrice escape. For Hamp- den, the hope of the nation, is fatally shot through the shoulder with two carbine-balls in the first charge ; the whole troop sees it with dismay; Essex comes up, as usual, too late, and the fight of Chalgrove Field is lost We must leave this picture, painted in the fading colors of a &r-off time. Let us leave the noble Hampden, weak and almost fainting, riding calmly from the field, and wandering away over his own Chiltem meadows, that he loves so well, — leave him, drooping over his saddle, di« recti ng his horse first towards his father-in-law's house at Pyrton, where once he wedded his youthful bride, then turning towards Thame, and miistering his last strength to leap his tired steed across its boundary brook. A few days of laborious weakness, spent in letter-writing to urge upon Fariiament something of that military energy which, if earlier adopted, might have saved his life, — - and we see a last, funereal procession winding beneath the Chiltem hills, and singing the 90th Psalm as the mourners approach the tomb of the Hampdens, and the 43d as they return. And well may the "Weekly In- telligencer" say of him (June 27, 1643), that "the mem- ory of this deceased Colonel is such that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem ; a man so religious, and of that prudence, judg« ment, temper, valor, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind him." And we must leave Rupert to his career of romantic daring, to be made President of Wales and Generalissimo 162 A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. of the army, — to rescae with unequalled energy Newark and York and the besieged heroine of Lathom House, — to fight through Newbury and Marston Moor and Naseby, and many a lesser field, — to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, but hopelessly condemned by the King ; — then to leave the kingdom, refusing a pass- port, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside ; — then to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutch- men by his seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by his .buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and birds and monkeys and " richly liveried Blackamoors " ; — then to reorganize the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, JVJonk, whom the ocean makes rash, as it makes Rupert prudent ; — leave him to use nobly his declining years, in studious toils in Windsor Castle, the fulfilment of Milton's dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the '^Harleian Miscellany " still records ; — leave him to hunt and play at tennis, serve in the Hudson's Bay Company and the Board of Trade ; — leave him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, gunpowder, per- spective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and rcYolvers ; — leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory for him ; — leave him to die ^ calm and honored death at sixty-three, outliving every com- panion of his early days. The busy world, which has no time to remember many, forgets him and recalls only the slain and defeated Hampden. The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass toys which record his inge- A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. 153 nuity and preserve his name ; the hammer and the anvil can scarcely mar them, yet a slight pressure of the finger, in the fatal spot, will burst them into glittering^ showers of dust. The fuU force of those iron times beat ineffectual upon Rupert ; -^ Death touched him, and that shining fame sparkled and was shattered forever. 7* i MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. I. THE SCENE AND THE ACTORS. THE heroine of this tale is one so famous in history that her proper name never appears in it. The seeming paradox is the soberest fact. To us Americans, glory lies in the abundant display of one's personal appel- lation in the newspapers. Our heroine lived in the most gossiping of all ages, herself its greatest gossip ; yet her own name, patronymic or baptismal, never was talked about. It was not that she sunk that name beneath high- sounding titles ; she only elevated the most commonplace of all titles till she monopolized it and it monopolized her. Anne Marie Louise d'Orl^ans, Souveraine de Dombes, Princesse Dauphine d'Auvergne, Duchesse de Montpensier, is forgotten, or rather was never remembered ; but the great name of MademoiseItLE, La Grande Mademoi- seUe, gleams like a golden thread shot through and through that gorgeous tapestry of crimson and purple which re- cords for us the age of Louis Quatprze. In May of the year 1627, while the slow tide of events was drawing Charles I. toward his scaffold, — while Sir John Eliot was awaiting in the Tower of London the summoning of the Third Parliament, — while the troops of 168 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. Backingham lay djing, without an en^my, upon the f sle of Bb^, — at the very crisis of the. terrible siege of Bochelle, and perhaps dating the very hoar when the Three Guards- men of Dumas held that famous bastion against an army, the heroine of our story was bom. And she, like the Three Guardsmen, waited till twenty years after for a career. The twenty years are over. Bichelieu is dead. The strongest will that ever ruled France has passed away ; and the poor, broken Ejng has hunted his last badger at St. Germain, and then meekly followed his master to the grave, as he has always followed him. Louis XIII., called Louis le Juste, not from the predominance of that particular virtue (or any other) in his character, but sim^ ply because he happened to be bom under the constella- tion of the Scales, has died like a Frenchman, in peace with all the world except his wife. That beautiful and queenly wife, called Anne of Austria (though a Spaniard), — no longer the wild and passionate girl who fascinated Buckingham and embroiled two kingdoms, — ^ has hastened within four days to defy all the dying imprecations of her husband, by reversing every plan and every appointment he has made. The little prince has already shown all the Grand Monarque in his childish ^Je suis Louis Quatorze," and has been carried in his bib to hold his first parliament That parliament, heroic as its En^ish contemporary, though less successful, has reached the point of revolution at last. Civil war is impending. Cond^, at twenty-one the greatest general in Europe, a£ber changing sides a hundred times in a week, is fixed at last Turenne is arrayed against him. The young, the brave, the beautiful cluster around them. The per- formers are drawn up in line,. — the -curtain rises, — the play is "The Wars of the Fronde," — and into that MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 159 brilliant arena, like some fair circus equestrian, gay, spangled, and daring, rider Mademoiselle. Almost all French historians, from Yojtaire to Cousin (St. Aulaire being the chief exception), speak lightly of the Wars of the Fronde. " La Fronde n'est pas s^rieuse.'' Of course it was not Had it been wholly serious, it would not have been wholly French. Of course French insurrections, like French despotisms, have always been tempered by epigrams ; of course the people went out to the conflicts in ribbons and feathers ; of course over every battle there pelted down a shower of satire, like the rain at the Eglinton tournament. More than two hundred pamphlets rattled on the head of Conde alone, and the! collection of Mazarinadesy preserved by the Cardinal himself, fills sixty-nine volumes in quarto. From every field the first crop was glory, the second a hon^mot When the dagger of De Retz fell from his breast-pocket, it was << our good archbishop's breviaiy " ; and when his famous Corinthian troop was defeated in battle, it was ** the First Epistle to the Corinthians." While, across the Channel, Charles Stuart was Ibtening to his doom, Paris was gay in the midst of dangers, Madame de Longueville was re- ceiving her gallants in mimic court at the Hdtel de Yille, De Retz was wearing his sword-belt over his archbishop's gown, the little hunchback Conti was genersflissimo, and the starving people were pillaging Mazarin's library, in joke, <^ to find something to gnaw upon." Outside the walls, the maids-of-honor were quarrelling over the straw beds which annihilated all the romance of martyrdom, and Cond^, with five thousand men, was besieging five hun- dred thousand. No matter, they all laughed through it, and through every succeeding turn of the kaleidoscope ; and the ^ Anything may happen in France," with which 160 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS., La ^Rochefoucauld jumped amicably into the carriage of his mortal enemy, was not only the first and best of his maxims, but the key-note of French history for all coming tim^. But behind all this sport, as in all the annals of the nation, were mysteries and terrors and crimes. It was the age of cabalistic ciphers, like that of De Eetz, of which Guy Joli dreamed the solution ; of inexplicable secrets, like the Man in the Iron Mask, whereof no solu- tion was ever dreamed ; of poisons, like that diamond-dust which in six hours transformed the fresh beauty of the Princess Royal into foul decay; of dungeons^ like that cell at Yincennes which Madame de Rambouillet pro- nounced to be " worth its weight in arsenic." War or . peace hung on the color of a ball-dress, and Madame de Chevreuse knew which party was coming uppermost, by observing whether the binding of Madame de Haute- fort's prayer-book was red or green. Perhaps it was all a little theatrical, but the performers were all Rachels. And behind the crimes and the frivolities stood. the Parliaments, calm and undaunted, with leaders like Mol4 and Talon, who needed nothing but success to make their names as grand in history as those of Pym and Hampden. Among the Brienne Papers in the British Museum there is a collection of the manifestoes and proclamations of that time, and they are earnest, eloquent, and powerful, from beginning to end. Lord Mahon alone among his- torians, so far as my knowledge goes, has done fit and -fiiU justice to the French parliaments, those assemblies which refused admission to the foreign armies which the nobles would gladly have summoned in, — but fed and protected the banished princesses of England, when the court party had left those descendants of the Bourbons MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 161 to die of cold and hunger in the palace of their ancestors. And we have the testimony of Henrietli Maria herself, the only person who had seen both revolutions near at hand, that " the troubles in England never appeared so formidable in their early days, nor were the leaders of the revolutionary party so ardent or so united." The charac- ter of the agitation was no more to be judged by its jokes and epigrams, than the gloomy glory of the English Puritans by the grotesque names of their saints, or the stem resolution of the Dutch burghers by their guilds of rhetoric and symbolical melodrama. But popular .power was not yet developed in France, as it was in England ; all social order was unsettled and changing, and well Mazarin knew it. He knew the pieces with which he played his game of chess ; the king powerless, the queen mighty, the bishops unable to take a single straightforward move, and the knights going naturally zigzag ; with a host of plebeian pawns, every one fit for a possible royalty, and therefore to be used shrewd- ly, or else annihilated as soon as practicable. True, the game would not last forever ; but afler him the deluge. Our age has forgotten even the meaning of the word ** Fronde '**; but here also the French and Flemish histo- ries run parallel, and the Frondeurs, like the Gueux, were children of a sarcasm. The Counsellor Bachaumont one day ridiculed insurrectionists, as resembling the boys who played with slings (frondes) about the streets of. Paris, but scattered at the first, glimpse of a policeman. The phnase organized the party. Next morning all fashions were a la fronde, — hatsj gloves, fans, bread, and ballads ; and it cost six years of civil war to pay for the Counsel- lor's facetiousness. That which was, afler all, the most remarkable char- N.-- ■J J 162 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. acteristio of these wars might be guessed from this fact about the fashioA. The Fronde was pre-eminently <^ the War of the Ladies." Educated far beyond the English- women of their time, they took a controlling share, some- times ignoble, often noble, always powerful, in the af- fairs of the time. It was not merely a courtly gallantry which flattered them with a hollow importance. De Retz, in bis Memoirs, compares the women of his age * with Elizabeth of England. A Spanish ambassador once congratulated Mazarin on obtaining temporary repose. ^ You are mistaken," he replied, ^ there is no repose in France, for I have always women to contend with. In Spain, women have only love-afiairs to employ them ; but here we have three who are capable of governing or over- throwing great kingdoms, — the Duchesse de Longueville, the Princesse Palatine, and the Duchesse die Chevrciuse." And there were others as great as these ; and the women who for years outwitted Mazarin and outgeneralled Conde are deserving of a stronger praise than they have . yet obtained, even from the classic and courtly Cousin. What men of that age eclipsed or equalled the address and daring of those delicate and high-born women ? What a romance was their ordinary existence ! The Princesse Palatine gave refuge to Mme. de Longueville when that alone saved her from sharing the imprisonment of her brothers CJond^ and Conti, — then fled for her own life, by night, with Eochefoucauld. Mme. de Longueville herself, pursued afterwards by the royal troops, wished to embark in a little boat, on a dangerous shore, during a midnight storm so wild that not a fisherman could at first be found to venture forth ; the beautiful fugitive threat- ened and implored till they consented; the sailor who bore her in his arms to the boat let her fall amid the MADEMOISELLE* S CAMPAIGNS. 163 furious surges ; she was dragged senseless to the shore again, and, on the instant of reviving, demanded to repeat the experiment ; but as they utterly refused, she rode in- land beneath the tempest, and travelled for fourteen nights before she could find another place of embarka- tion. Madame de Chevreuse rode with one attendant from Paris to Madrid, fleeing from Richelieu, remaining day and night on her horse, attracting perilous admiration by the womanly loveliness which no male attire could obscure. From Spain she went to England, organizing there the French exiles into a strength which frightened Richelieu ; thence to Holland, to conspire nearer home; back to Paris, on the minister's death, to form the faction of the Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was im- prisoned, Mazarin said, ^ Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?'' Ten years from her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendue, embarked at St. Malo for Dunkirk, was captured by the fleet of the Parliament, was released by the Gov- ernor of the Isle of Wight, unable to imprison so beautiful a butterfly, reached her port at last, and in a few weeks was intriguing at Liege again. The Duchesse de Bouillon, Turenne's sister, purer than those we have named, but not less daring or determined, after charming the whole population of Paris by her rebel beauty at th^ Hotel de Yille, escaped from her sudden incarceration by walking through the midst of her guards at dusk, crouching in the shadow of her little daughter, and afterwards allowed lierself to be recaptured, rather than desert that child^s sick-bed. Then there was Cl^mence de Maille, purest and noblest of all, niece of Richelieu and hapless wife of the cruel 164 MADEMOrSELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. ingrate G)Dd^, his equal in daring and his superior in every other high quality. Married while a child still playing with her dolls, and sent at once to a convent to learn to read and write, she became a woman the instant her husband became a captive; while he watered his pinks in the garden at Vincennes, she went through France and raised an army for his relief. Her means were ks noble as her ends. She would not surrender the hum- blest of her friends to an enemy, nor suffer the massacre of her worst enemy by a friend. She threw herself be- tween the fire of two hostile parties at Bordeaux,' and, while men were falling each side of her, compelled them to peace. Her deeds rang through Europe. When she sailed from Bordeaux for Paris at last, thirty thousand people assembled to bid her farewell. She was loved and admired by all the world, except that husband for whom she dared so much, — and the Archbishop of Taen. The respectable Archbishop complained, that "this lady did not prove that she had been authorized by her husband, an essential provision, without which no woman can act in law." And Cond6 himself, whose heart, physically twice as large as other men's, was spiritually impercep- tible, repaid this stainless nobleness by years of persecu- tion, and bequeathed her, as a lifelong prisoner, to his dastard son. Then, on the royal side, there was Anne of Austria, suflScient unto herself, Queen Regent, and ^every inch a queen (before all but Mazarin), — from the moment when the mob of Paris filed through the chamber of the boy -king, during his pretended sleep, and the motionless and stately mother held back the crimson draperies with the same lovely arm that had waved perilous farewells to Buckingham, — to the day when the news of the fatal . k t , «. k « :• I •■ ' k t. «• '' MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS, 165 battle of Gien came to her in her dressing-room, and " she remained undisturbed before the mirror, not neglect- ing the arrangement of a single curl." In short, every woman who took part in the Ladies' War became heroic, — from Marguerite of Lorraine, who snatched the pen from her weak husband's hand and gave De Retz the order for the first insurrection, down to the wife of the commandant of the Porte St. Roche, who, springing from her bed to obey that order, made the drums beat to arms and secured the barfier; and fitly, amid 'adventurous days like these, opened the career of Mademoiselle. II. THE FIRST CAMPAIGN. Grandchild of Henri Quatre, niece of Louis XIIL, cousin of Louis XIV., first princess of the blood, and with the largest income in the nation (500,000 livres), to sup- port these dignities, Mademoiselle was certainly born in the purple. Her autobiography admits us to very gor- geous company ; the stream of her personal recollections is a perfect Pactolus. There is almost a surfeit of royalty in it ; every card is a court-card, and all her counters are counts. " I wore at this festival all the crown-jewels of France, and also those of the. Queen of England^" "A far greater establishment Was assigned to me than any Jille de France had ever had, not excepting any of my aunts, the Queens of England and of Spain, and the Duchess of Savoy." " The Queen, my grandmother, gave me as a governess the same lady who had been governess to the late King." Pageant or funeral, it is the same 166 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. tiling. ^' In the midst of these festivities we heard of the death of the King of Spain ; whereat the Queens were greatly afflicted, and we all went into mourning." Thus, throughout, her Memoirs glitter like the coat with which the splendid Buckingham astonished the cheaper chivalry of France : they drop diamonds. But for any personal career Mademoiselle found at first no opportunity, in the earlier years of the Fronde. A gay, fearless, flattered girl, she simply shared the fortuned of the court ; laughed at the festivals in the palace, laughed at the ominous insurrections in the streets ; laughed when the people cheered her, their pet princess ; and when the royal party fled from Parisj she adroitly secured for her- self the hest straw-hed at St. Germain, and laughed louder than ever. ' She despised the courtiers who flattered her ; secretly admired her young cousin Cond^, whom she affected to despise ; danced when the court danced, and ran away when it mourned. She made all manner of fun of her English lover, the future Charles II., whom she alone of all the world found bashful ; and in general she wasted the golden hours with much excellent fooling. Nor would she, perhaps, ever have found herself a heroine, but that her respectable father was a poltroon. Lord Mahon ventures to assert, that Gaston, Duke of Orleans, was " the most cowardly prince of whom history makes mention." A strong expression, but perhaps safe. Holding the most powerful position in the nation, he never came upon the scene but to commit some new act of ingenious pusillanimity ; while, by some extraordinary chance, every woman of his immediate kindred was a natural heroine, and became more heroic through disgust at him. His wife was Marguerite of Lorraine, who origi- nated the first Fronde insurrection ; his daughter turned MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 1G7 the scale of the second. Yet, personally, he not only had not the courage to act, but had not the courage to ab- stain from acting : he could no more keep out of parties than in them, but was always busy, waging war in spite of Mars, and negotiating in spite of Minerva. And when the second war of the Fronde broke out, it was in spite of himself that he gave his name and his daughter to the popular cause. When the fate of the two nations hung trembling in the balance, the royal army under Turenne advancing on Paris, and almost arrived at the city of Orleans, and that city likely to take the side of the strongest, -=- then Mademoiselle's hour had come. All her sympathies were more and more inclining to the side of Cond4 and the people. Orleans was her own hereditary city. Her father, as was his custom in great emergencies, declared that he was very ill and must go to bed immediately ; but it was as easy for her to be strong as it was for him to be weak ; so she wrung from him a reluctant plenipotentiary power ; she might go herself and try what her influence could do. And so she rode forth from Paris, one fine morning, March 27, 1652, — rode with a few attendants, half in enthusiasm, half in levity, aim- ing to become a second Joan of Arc, secure the city, and save the nation. "I felt perfectly delighted," says the young girl, " at having to play so extraordinary a part." The people of Paris had heard of her mission, and cheered her as she went. . The officers of the army, with an escort of five hundred men, met her half-way from PaYis. Most of them evidently knew her calibre, were delighted to see her, and installed her at once over a regular council of war. She entered into the position with her natural promptness. A certain grave M. de Bohan undertook to tutor her privately, and met his 168 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. match. In the public deliberation, there were some differ- ences of opinion. All agreed that the army should not pass beyond the Loire : this was Gaston's suggestion, and nevertheless a good one. Beyond this all was left to Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle intended to go straight to Orleans. " But the royal army had reached there al- ready." Mademoiselle did not believe it. " The citizens would not admit her." Mademoiselle would. see about that. Presently the city government of Orleans sent her a letter, in great dismay, particularly requesting her to keep her distance. Mademoiselle imnaediately ordered her coach, and set out for the city. '" I was naturally resolute," she naively remarks. Her siege of Orleans was one of the most remarkable military operations on record. She was right in one thing ; the royal army had not arrived : but it might appear at any moment ; so the magistrates quietly shut all their gates, and waited to see what would happen. Mademoiselle happened. It was eleven in the morn- ing when she reached the Forte Banniere, and she sat three hours in her state carriage without seeing a person. With amusing politeness, the governor of the city at last sent her some confectionery, — agreeing with John Keats, who held that young women were beings fitter to be pre- sented with sugar-plums than with one's time. But he took care to explain that the bonbons were not official, and did not recognize her authority. So she quietly ate them, and then decided to take a walk outside the walls. Her council of war opposed this step, as they did every other ; but she coolly said (and the event justified her prediction) that the enthusiasm of the populace would carry the city for her, if she could only get at th$m. So she set out on her walk. Her two beautiful ladies- MAUEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGN^. 169 of-honor, the Countesses de Fiesque and de Frontenac went with her ; a few attendants behind. She came to a gate. The people were all gathered inside the ramparts. " Let me in," demanded the imperious young lady. The astonished citizens looked at one another and said nothing. She walked on, — the crowd inside keeping pace with her. She reached another gate. The enthusiasm was increased. The captain^of the guard formed his troops in line and saluted her. " Open the gate," she again in- sisted. The pool' captain made signs that he had not the keys. " Break it down, then," coolly suggested the daughter of the House of Orleans ; to which his only reply was a profusion of profound bows, and the lady walked on. Those wero the days of astrology, and at this moment it occurred to our Mademoiselle, that the chief astrologer of Paris had predicted success to all her undertakings, from the noon of this very day until the noon following. She had never had the sh'ghtest faith* in the mystic sci- ence, but she turned to her attendant ladies, and remarked that the matter was settled ; she should get in. On went the three until they reached the bank of the river, and saw, opposite, the gates which opened on the quay. The Orleans boatmen came flocking round her, a hardy race, who feared neither queen nor Mazarin. They would break down any gate she chose. She selected one, got into a boat, and sending back her terrified male attend- ants, that they might have no responsibility in the case, she was rowed to the other side. Her new allies weye already at work, and she climbed from the boat upon the ' quay by a high ladder, of which several rounds were broken away. They worked more and more enthusiasti- cally, though the gate was built to stand a siege^ and 8 170 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. stoutly resisted this one. Courage is magnetic ;_eyeiy moment increased the popular enthusiasm, as these high- born ladies stood alone among the boatmen ; the crowd inside joined in the attack upon the gate ; the guard looked on ; the city government remained irresolute at the Hotel de Ville, fairly beleaguered and stormed by one princess and two maids-of-honor. A crash, and the mighty timbers of the Forte Brulee yield in the centre. Aided by the strong and exceedingly soiled hands of her new friends, our elegant Mademoiselle is lifted, pulled, pushed, and tugged between the vast iron bars which fortify the gate ; and in this fashion, torn, splashed, and dishevelled generally, she makes entrance into her city. The guard, promptly adhering to the win- ning side, present arms to the heroine. The people fill the air with their applauses ; they place her in a large wooden chair, and bear her in triumph through the streets. ** Everybody came to kiss my hands, while I was dying with laughter to find myself in so odd a situation.*' Presently our volatile lady told them that she had learned how to walk, and begged to be put down ; then she waited for her countesses, who arrived bespattered- with niud. The drums beat before her, as she set forth again, and the city government, yielding to the feminine conqueror, came to do her homage. She carelessly as- sured them of her clemency. She '^ had no doubt that they would soon have opened the gates, but she was paturally of a very impatient disposition, and could not wait." Moreover, she kindly suggested, neither party -could now find fault with them ; and as for the future, she, would save them all trouble, and govern the city herself, — which she accordingly did. By confession of all historians, she alone saved the city MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 171 for the Fronde, and, for the moment, secured that party the ascendency in the nation. Next day the advance-guard of the royal forces appeared, — a day too late. Madem- oiselle m^de a speech (the first in her life) to the city gov- ernment ; then went forth to her ow» small army, by this time drawn near, and held another council. The next day she received a letter from her father (whose health was now decidedly restored), declaring that she had " saved Orleans and secured Paris, and shown yet more judgment than courage.*' The next day Cond^ came up with his forces, compared his fair cousin to Gustavus Adolphus, and wrote to her that '^ her exploit was such as she only could have performed, and was of the greatest importance." Mademoiselle stayed a little longer at Orleans, while the armies lay watching each other, or fighting the battle of Bl^neau, of which Cond^ wrote her an ofiicial bulletin, as being generalissimo. She amused herself easily, went to mass, played at bowls, received the magistrates, stopped couriers to laugh over their letters, reviewed the troops, signed passports, held councils, and did many things " for which she should have thought herself quite unfitted, if • she had not found she did them very well." The enthu- siasm she had inspired kept itself unabated, for she really deserved it. She was everywhere recognized as head of affairs ; the officers of the army drank her health on their knees, when she dined with them, while the trumpets sounded and the cannons roared ; Conde, wheU' absent, left instructions to his officers, " Obey the com- mands of Mademoiselle, as my own"; and her father addressed a despatch from Paris to hei' ladies of honor, as Field-Marshals in her army: "A Mesdames lea Comtesses Mar^chales de Camp dans rArm6e de ma Fille centre le Mazarin." 172 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. III. CAMPAIGN THE SECOND. ■ Mademoiselle went back to Paris. Half the popu* lation met her outside the walls ; she kept up the heroine, by compulsion, and for a few weeks held her court as Queen of France. If the Fronde had held its position, she might very probably have held hers. Cond^, being unable to marry her himself, on account of the continued existence of his invalid wife (which he sincerely regret- ted), had a fixed design of marrying her to the young King. Queen Henrietta Maria cordially' greeted her, lamented more than ever her rejection of the " bashful " Charles II., and compared her to the original Maid of Or- leans, — an ominous compliment from an English source. The royal army drew near; on July 1, 1652, Madem- oiselle heard their drums beating outside. " I shall not stay at home to-day," she said to her attendants, at two in the morning; *'I feel convinced that I shall be called to do some unforeseen act, as I was at Orleans." And she was not far wrong. The battle of the Porte St,- Antoine was at hand. Conde and Turenne ! The two greatest names in the history of European wars, until a greater eclipsed them both. CondtS, a prophecy of Napoleon, a general by instinct, incapable of defeat, insatiable of glory, throwing his marshal's b^ton within the lines of the enemy, and following it ; passionate^ false, unscrupulous, mean. Tu- renne, the precursor of Wellington rather, simple, honest, truthful, humble, eating off his iron camp-eqUipage to the end of life. If it be true, as the ancients said, that an army of stags led by a lion is more formidable than an MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS 173 army of lions led by a stag, then the presence of two such heroes would have given lustre to the most trivial conflict. But that fight was not trivial upon which hung the pos- session of Paris and the fate of France ; and between these two great soldiers it was our Mademoiselle who was again to hold the balance, and to decide the day. The battle raged furiously outside the city. French- man fought against Frenchnlan, and nothing distinguished the two armies except .a wisp of straw in the hat, on the one side, and a piece of paper on the other. The people of the metropolis, fearing equally the Prince and the King, had shut the gates against all but the wounded and the dy- ing. The Parliament was awaiting the result of the battle, before taking sides. The Queen was on her knees in the Carmelite Chapel. De Retz was shut up in his palace, and Gaston of Orleans in his, — the latter, as usual, slightly indisposed'; and Mademoiselle, passing anxiously through the streets, met nobleman after nobleman of her acquaint- ance borne with ghastly wounds to his residence. She knew that the numbers were unequal ; she knew that her friends must be losing ground. She rushed back to her •father, and implored him to go forth in person, rally the citizens, and relieve Cond^. It was quite impossible ; he was so exceedingly feeble ; he could not walk a hundred yards. " Then, Sir," said the indignant Princess, " I ad- vise you to go immediately to bed. The world had better believe that you cannot do your duty, than that you will not." Time passed on, each moment registered in blood. Mademoiselle went and came ; still the same sad proces- sion of dead and dying ; still the same mad confltct. Frenchman against Frenchman, in the three great ave- nues of the Faubourg St. Antoine. She watched it from 174 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS, the city walls till she could bear it no longer. One final, desperate appeal, and her dastard father consented, not to act himself, but again to appoint- her his substitute. Armed with the highest authority, she hastened to the H6tel de Ville, where the Parliament was in irresolute session. The citizens thronged round her, as she went, inploring her to become their leader. She reached the scene, exhibited her credentials, and breathlessly issued demands which would have ma^e Gaston's hair stand on end. ^I desire three things," announced Mademoiselle: '* first, that the citizens shall be called to arms." " It is done," answered the obsequious officials. " Next," she resolutely went on, " that two thousand men shall be sent to relieve the troops of the Prince." They pledged themselves to this also. " Finally," said the daring lady, conscious of the mine she was springing, and reserving the one essential point till the last, ^' that the army of Cond^ shall be allowed free passage into the city." The officials, headed by the Mar^chal de I'Hdpital, at once exhibited the most extreme courtesy of demeanor, and begged leave to assure her Highness that under no conceivable circumstances could d^is request be granted. She let loose upon them all the royal anger of the House of Bourbon. She remembered the sights she had just seen ; she thought of Rochefoucauld, with his eye shot out and his white gs^rments stained with blood, -— of Guitant shot through the body, — of Roche- Giffard, whom she pitied, " though a Protestant." Conde might, at that moment, be sharing their fate; all depended on her; and so Conrart declares, in his Memoirs, that ^' Mademoiselle said some strange things to these gentle- MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 175 men " : as^ for instance, that her attendants should throw them out of the window ; that she would pluck ofif the Marshal's beard ; that he should die by no hand but hers, and the like. When it came to this, the Marechal de 'THopital stroked his chin with a sense of insecurity, and called the council away to deliberate; ^'during which time," says the softened Princess, ^ leaning on a window which looked on the St Esprit, where they were saying mass, I offered up my prayers to God." At last they came back, and assented to every one of her propositions. In a moment she was in the streets again. The first person she met was Vallon, terribly wounded. " We are lost!" he said. "You are saved!" she cried, proudly. " I command to-day in Paris, as I commanded in Orleans." " Yous me rendez la vie," said the reanimated soldier, who had been with her in her first campaign. On she went, meeting at every step men wounded in the head, in the. body, in the limbs, — on horseback, on foot,, on planks, on barrows, — besides the bodies of the slain. She reached the windows beside the Porte St. Antoine, and Conde met her there ; he rode up, covered with blood and dust, his scabbard lost, his sword in hand. Before she could speak, that soul of fire uttered, for the only recorded time in his career, the word Despair : " Ma cousin e, vous voyez un homme au desespoir," — and burst into tears. But her news instantly revived him, and his army with him. ''Mademoiselle is at the gate," the soldiers cried; and,* . with this certainty of a place of refuge, they could do all things. In this famous fight, ^ye thousand men defended themselves against twelve thousand, for eight hours. " Did you see Conde himself?" they asked Turenne, after it was over. " I saw not one, but a dozen. Cond^s," was the an- swer ; " he was in every place at once." 176 MADEMOISELLE* S CAMPAIGNS. But there was one danger more for Conde, one oppor- tunity more for Mademoiselle, that day. Climbing the neighboring towers of the Bastille, she watched the royal party on the heights of Charonne, and saw fresh, cavalry and artillery detached to aid the army of Turenne. The odds were already enormous, and there was but one course left for her. She was mistress of Paris, and there- fore mistress of the Bastille. She sent for the governor of the fortress, and showed him the advancing troops. " Turn the cannon under your charge, Sir, upon the royal army." Without waiting' to heed the consternation she left behind her, Mademoiselle returned to the gate. The troops had heard of the advancing reinforcements, and were drooping again ; when, suddenly, the cannon of the Bastille, those Spanish cannon, flamed out their powerful succor, the royal army halted |ind retreated, and the day was won. The Queen and the Cardinal, watching from Charonne, saw their victims escape them. But the cannon-shots be- wildered them all. " It was probably a salute to Mad- emoiselle," suggested some cbmforting adviser, "No," said the experienced Marshal de Villeroi, " if Madem- oiselle had a hand in it, the salute was for us." At this, Mazarin comprehended the whole proceeding, and coldly consoled himself with a hon-mot that became historic, " Elle a tu^ son mari," he said, — meaning that her dreams of matrimony with the young king must now be ended. No matter ; the battle of the Porte St. Antoine if^as ended also. There have been many narratives of that battle, in- cluding Napoleon's ; they are hard to reconcile, and our heroine's own is by no means the clearest ; but all essen- tially agree in the part they ascribe to her. One brief appendix to the campaign, and her short career of hero- ism fades into the light of common day. MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 177 Yet a third time did Fortune, showering upon one maiden so many opportunities at once, summon her to arm herself with her father's authority, that she might go in his stead into that terrible riot which, two days after, tarnished the glories of Conde, and by its reaction over- threw the party of the Fronde erelong. None but Mad- emoiselle dared to take the part of that doomed minority in the city government, which, for resisting her own demands, were to be terribly punished on that fourth-of- July night. " A conspiracy so base," said the generous Talon, "never stained the soil of France." By delib- erate premeditation, an assault was made by five hun- dred disguised soldiers on the Parliament assembled in the H6tel de Ville ; the tumult spread ; the night rang with a civil conflict more terrible than that of the day. Condo and Gaston were vainly summoned ; the one cared not, the other dared not. Mademoiselle again took her place in her carriage and drove forth amid the terrors of the night. The sudden conflict had passed its cruel cli- max, but she rode through streets slippery with blood ; she was stopped at every corner. Once a man laid his arm on the window, and asked if Conde was within the carriage. She answered "No," and he retreated, the flambeaux gleaming on a weapon beneath his cloak. Through these interruptions, she did ijot reach the half- burned and smoking Hotel de Ville till most of its in- mates had left it ; the few remaining she aided to conceal, and emerged again amid the lingering, yawning crowd, who cheered her with, " God bless Mademoiselle ! all she does is well done." At four o'clock that morning she went to rest, weary with these days and nights of responsibility. Sleep, soundly. Mademoiselle, you will be troubled with such 8*> L 178 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. no longer. An ignominions peace is at hand ; and^though peace, too, has her victories, yours is not a nature grand enough to grasp them. Last to yield, last to be/orgiven, there will yet be little iii your future career to justify the distrust of despots, or to recall the young heroine of Orleans and St. Antoine. IV. THE CONCLUSION"* Like a river which loses itself, by infinite subdivision, in the sands, so the wars of the Fronde disappeared in petty intrigues at last As the fighting ended and ma- noBuvring became the game, of course Mazarin came upper- most, — Mazarin, that super-Italian, finessing and fasci- nating, so deadly sweet, Vhomme plus agriahle du monde, as Madame de Motteville and Bussy-Rabutin call him, — flattering that he might win, avaricious that he might be magnificent, winning kings by jewelry and princesses by lapdogs, — too cowardly for any avoidable collision, — too cool and economical in his hatred to waste an antag- onist by killing him, but always luring and cajoling him into an unwilling. tool, — too serenely careless of popular emotion even to hate the mob of Paris, any more than a surgeon hates his own lancet when it cuts him ; he only changes his grasp and holds it more cautiously. Mazarin ruled. And the King was soon joking over the fight at the Porte St. Antoine, with Conde and Mademoiselle ; the Queen at the same time affectionately assuring our heroine, that, if she could have got at her on that day, sjie would certainly have strangled her, but that, since it MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 179 was past, she woald love her as ever, — as ever ; while Mademoiselle, not to be outdone, lies like a French- woman, and assures the Queen that reallj she did not mean to be so naughty, but ^ she was with those who in- duced her to act against her sense of duty ! " The day of civil war was over. The daring heroines and voluptuous • blond beauties of the Frondeur party must seek excitement elsewhere. Some looked for it in literature; for the female education of France in that age was far higher than England could show. The intel- lectual glory of the reign of the Grand Monarque began in its women. Marie de Medicis had imported the Italian grace and wit, — Anne of Austria the Spanish courtesy and romance ; the Hdtel de Rambouillet had united the two, and introduced the genre precieux, or stately style, which was superb in its origin, and dwindled to absurdity in the hands of Mile, de Scudery, and her valets, before Moliere smiled it away forever. And now that the wars were done, literary society came up again. Madame de Sable exhausted the wit and the cookery of the age in her fascinating entertainments, — poUis and Pascal, Roche- foucauld and ragoiks, — Mme. de Br^gy's Epictetus, Mme. de Choisy's salads, — confectionery, marmalade, elixirs, Des Cartes, Amould, Calvinism, and the barom- eter. Mme. de Sable had a s.entimental theory that no woman should eat at the same table with a lover, but she liked to see her lovers eat, and Mademoiselle, in her obsolete novel of the " Princesse de Paphlagonie," gently satirizes this passion of her friend. And Mademoiselle herself finally eclipsed the Sabl^ by her own entertain- ments at her palace ofthe Luxembourg, where she oflfered no dish but one of gossip, serving up herself and friends in a course of " Portraits " so appetizing that it became 180 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. the fashion for ten years, and reached perfection at last in the famous " Characters " of La Bruyere. Other heroines went into convents, joined the Carmel- ites, or those nuns of Port- Royal of whom the Archbishop of Paris said that they lived in the purity of angels and the pride of devils. Thither went Madame de Sable herself, finally, — " the late Madame," as the dashing young abb($s called her when she renounced the world. Thither she drew the beautiful Longueville also, and Heaven smiled on one repentance that seemed sincere. There they found peace in the home of Ang^liqne Arnould and Jacqueline Pascal. And thence those heroic women came forth again, when religious war threatened to take the place of civil : again they put to shame their more timid male companions, and by their labors Jesuit and Jansenist found peace. But not such was to be the career of our Mademoiselle, who at twenty had tried the part of devotee for one week and renounced it forever. No doubt at thirty-five she " began to understand that it is part of the duty of a Christian to attend High Mass on Sundays and holy days " ; and her description of the death-bed of Anne of Austria is a most extraordinary jumble of the next world and this. But thus much of devotion was to her only a part of the proprieties of life, and before the altar of those proprieties she served, for the rest of her existence, with exemplary zeal. At. forty she was still the wealthi- est unmarried princess in Europe ; fastidious in toilet, stainless in reputation, not lovely in temper, rigid in eti- quette, learned in precedence, an oracle in court tradi- tions, a terror to the young maids-of-honor, and always quarrelling with her own sisters, younger, fairer, poorer than herself. Her mind and will were as active as in MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS, 181 her girlhood, but they ground chaff instead of wheat. Whether her sisters should dine at the Queen's table, when she never had ; who should be her train-bearer at the royal marriage ; whether the royal Spanish father-in- law, on the same occasion, should or should not salute the Queen-mother ; who, on any given occasion, should have a tabouret, who a pliant, who a chair, who an arm- chair ; who should enter the King's ruelle, or her own, or ^ass out by the private stairway ; how she should arrange the duchesses at state-funerals ; these were the things which tried Mademoiselle's soul, and these fill the later volumes of that autobiography whose earlier record was all a battle and a march. From Cond(i's'"Obey Mademoiselle!s orders as my own," we come down to this : " For my parfc; I had been worrying myself all day ; having been told that the new Queen would not salute me on the lipSf and that the King had decided to sustain her in this position. I therefore spoke to Monsieur the Cardinal on the subject,-bringing forward as an important precedent in my favor, that the Queen-mother had always kissed the princesses of the blood " ; and so on through many pages. Thus lapsed her youth of frolics into an old age of cards. It is a slight compensation that this very 'pettiness makes her chronicles of the age very vivid in details. How she revels in the silver brocades, the violet-colored velvet robes, the crimson velvet carpets, the purple damask curtains fringed with gold and silver, the embroi- dered fleurs de lis, the wedding-caskets, the cordons of diamonds, the clusters of emeralds enpoires with diamonds, and the Isabelle-colored linen, whereby* hangs a tale ! She still kept up her youthful habit of avoiding the sick- rooms pf her kindred^ but haw magnigcently she mourned 182 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. them when they died ! Her brief, genuine, but quite un- expected sorrow for her father was speedily assuaged by the opportunity it gave her to introduce the fashion of gray mourning instead of black ; it had previously, it seems, been worn by widows only. Servants and horses were all put in deep black, however, and "the court observed that I was very magnijiqite in all my arrangements." On the other hand, be it recorded, that our Mademoiselle, chivalrous roy- alist to the last, -was the only person at the French court who refused to wear mourning for the usurper Cromwell ! But, if thus addicted to funeral pageants, it is needless to say that weddings occupied their full proportion of her thought^. Her schemes for matrimony fill the larger portion of her history, and are, like all the rest, a diamond necklace of great names. In the boudoir^ as in the field, her campaigns were superb, but she was cheated of the results. Ifer picture should have been painted, like that of Justice, with sword and scales, — the one for foes, the other for lovers. She spent her life in weighing them, — monarch against monarch, a king in hand against an em- peror in the bush. We have it on her own authority, which, in such matters, was unsurpassable, that she was " the best match in Europe, except the Infanta of Spain." Not a marriageable prince in Christendom, therefore, can hover near the French court, but this middle-aged sen- sitive plant prepares to close her leaves and be coy. The procession of her wooers files before our wondering eyes, and each the likeness of a kingly crown has on : Louis himself, her bright possibility of twenty years, till he takes her at her own estimate and prefers the Infanta, — Mon- sieur, his younger brother, Philip IV. of Spain, Charles II. of England, the Emperor of Germany, the Archduke Leopold of Austria, — prospective king of Holland, — MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 183 the King of Portugal, the Prince of Denmark, the Elec- tor of Bavaria, the Duke of Savoy, Conde's son, and Conde himself. For the last of these alone she seems to have felt any real affection. Their tie was more than cousinly ; the same heroic blood of the early Bourbons was in them, they were trained by the same precocious successes, they Were only six years apart in age, and they began with that hearty mutual aversion which is so often the parent of love, in impulsive natures. Their flirtation was platonic, but chronic; and whenever poor, heroic, desolate Cl^mence de Maille was more ill than usual, these cousins were walking side by side in the Tuileries gar- dens, and dreaming, almost in silence, of what might be, while Mazarin shuddered at the thought of mating two such^ eagles together. So passed her life, and at last, like many a match-making lady, she baffled all the gos- sips, and left them all in laughter when her choice was made. The tale stands embalmed forever in the famous letter of Madame de Sevigne to her cousin, M. de Coulanges, written on Monday, December 15, 1670. It can never be translated too oflen, so let us risk it again. • " I have now to announce to you the most astonishing cir- cumstance, the most surprising, most marvellous, most triumphant, most bewildering, most unheard-of, most sin- gular, most extraordinary, most incredible, most unex- pected, most grand, most trivial, most rare, most common, most notorious, most secret (till to-day), most brilliant, most desirable; indeed, a thing to which past ages afibrd but one parallel, and that a poor one ; a thing which we can scarcely believe at Paris ; how can it be believed at Lyons ? a thing which excites the com- passion of all the world, and the delight of Madame 184 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. ' de Eohan and Madame de Hauterive ; a thing which is to be done on Sunday, when those who see it will hardly believe their eyes ; a thing which will be done on Sunday, and which might perhaps be impossible on Monday ; I cannot possibly announce it ; guess it ; I give you three guesses ; try now. If you will not, I must tell you. M. de Lauzun marries on Sunday, at the Louvre, — whom now? I give you three guesses, — ^^six, — a hundred. Madame de Coulanges says, ' It is npt hard to guess ; it is Madame de la Valliere.' Not at all, Madame ! * Mile, de Retz ? ' Not a bit ; you are a mere provincial. * How absurd ! ' you say ; * it is Mile. Colbert.* Not that either. * Then, of course, it is Mile, de Cr^qui.' Not right yet Must I tell you then ? Listen ! he marries on Sunday, at the Louvre, by his Majesty's permission. Mademoiselle, — Mademoiselle de, — Mademoiselle (will you guess again ?), — he marries Mademoiselle, — La Grande Mademoi- selle, — Mademoiselle, daughter of the late Monsieur, — Mademoiselle, granddaughter of Henri Quatre, — Mad- emoiselle d'Eu, — Mademoiselle de Dombes, — Mad- emoiselle de Montpensier, — Mademoiselle d'Orleans, — Mademoiselle, the King's own cousin, — Mademoiselle, destined for the throne, — Mademoiselle, the only fit match in France for Monsieur [the King's brother] ; — there 's a piece of information for you ! If you shriek, — if you are beside yourself, — if you say it is a hoax, false, mere gossip, stuff, and nonsense, — if, finally, you say hard things' about us, we do not complain ; we took the news in the same way. Adieu ! the letters by this post will show you whether we have told the truth." Poor Mademoiselle! Madame de S^vigne was right in one thing, — if it were not done promptly, it might prove impracticable. Like Ralph Roister Doister, she MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGN'S. 185 should ha' been married o' Sunday. Duly the contract was signed, by which Lauzun took the name of M. de Montpensier and the largest fortune in the kingdom, sur- rendered without reservation, all, all to him ; but Mazarin had bribed the notary to four hours' delay, and during that time the King was brought to change his mind, to re- voke his consent, and to contradict the letters he had written to foreign courts, formally announcing the nuptials of the first princess of the blood. In reading the Memoirs of Mademoiselle, one forgets all the absurdity of all her long amatory angling for the handsome young guardsman, in pity for her deep despair. When she went to remon- strate with the King, the two royal cousins fell ^n their knees, embraced, " and thus we remained for near three quarters of an hour, not a word being spoken during the whole time, but both drowned in tears." Reviving, she told the King, with her usual frankness, that he was " like apes who caress children and suffocate them " ; and this high-minded monarch soon proceeded to justify her remark by ordering her lover to the Castle of Pignerol, to pre- vent a private marriage, — which had probably taken place already. Ten years passed, before the labors and wealth of this constant and untiring wife could obtain her husband's release ; and when he was discharged at last, he came out a changed, soured, selfish, ungrateful man. " Just Heaven," she had exclaimed in her youth, " would not bestow such a woman as myself upon a man who was unworthy of her." But perhaps Heaven was juster than she thought. The married pair soon parted again for- ever, and Lauzun went to England, there to atone for these inglorious earlier days by one deed of heroic loyalty which I have no room to tell. And then unrolled the gorgeous tapestry of the maturer 186 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS, reign of the Grand Monarque, — that sovereign whom his priests in their litlirgy stjied "the chief work of the Divine hands," and of whom Mazarin said, more truthfully, that there was material enough in him for four kings and one honest man. The " Moi-meme " of his boyish resolu- tion became the " L'dtat, c'est moi " of his maturer ego- tism ; Spain yielded to France the mastery of the land, as she had already yielded to Holland and England the sea; Turenne fell at Sassbach, Cond^ sheathed his sword at Chantilly; Bossuet and Bourdaloue, preaching the fu- neral sermons of these heroes, praised their glories, and forgot, as preachers will, their sins; Vatel committed suicide because His Majesty had not fish enough for break- fast ; the Princesse Palatine died in a convent, and the Princesse Conde in a prison ; the- fair Sevign^ chose the better part, and the fairer Montespan the worse; the lovely La Yalliere walked through sin to saintliness, and poor Marie de Mancini through saintliness to sin ; Yoi- ture and Benserade and Corneille passed away, and Kacine and Moliere reigned in their stead ; and Madem- oiselle, who had won the first campaigns of her life and lost all the rest, died a weary old woman at sixty-seven. Thus wrecked and' wasted, her opportunity past, her career a disappointment, she leaves us only the passing glimpse of what she was, and the hazy possibility of what she might have been. Perhaps the defect was, after all, in herself; perhaps the soil was not deep enough to produce anything but a few stray heroisms, bright and transitory ; — perhaps otherwise. What fascinates us in her is simply her daring, that inborn fire of the blood to which danger is its own exceeding great reward; a quality which always kindles enthusiasm, and justly, but which is a thing of temperament, not necessarily joined with any MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. 187 other great qualities, and worthless when it stands alone. But she had other resources, — weapons, at least, if not qualities ; she had birth, wealth, ambition, decision, pride, perseverance, ingenuity; beauty not slight, though not equalling the superb Longuevilles and Chevreuses of the age ; great personal magnetism, more than average culti- vation for that period, and unsullied chastity. Who can say in what these things might have ended und6r other circumstances ? We have seen how Mazarin, who read all hearts but the faintly, dreaded the conjunction of her- self and Conde ; it is scarcely possible to doubt that it would have placed a new line of Bourbons on the throne. Had she married Louis XIV., she might not have con- trolled thj^ steadier will, but there would have been two Grand Monarques instead of one; had she accepted Charles II. of England, she might have only increased his despotic tendencies, but she would easily have disposed of the Duchess of Portsmouth ; had she won Ferdinand III., Germany might have suffered less by the Peace of West- phalia ; had she chosen Alphonso Henry, the house of Braganza would again have been upheld by a w.oman's hand. But she did none of these things, and her* only epitaph is that dreary might-have-been. Nay, not the only one, — for one visible record of her, at least, the soil of France cherishes among its chiefest treasures. When the Paris butterflies flutter for a sum- mer day to the decaying watering-place of Dieppe, some American wanderer, who flutters with them, may cast perchance a longing eye to where the hamlet of Eu stands amid its verdant meadows, two miles away, still lovely as when the Archbishop Laurent chose it out of all the world for his " place of eternal rest," six centuries ago. But it is not for its memories of priestly tombs 188 MADEMOISELLE'S CAMPAIGNS. jBOid miracles that the summer visitor sieeks it now, nor because the savant loves its ancient sea-margin or its Homan remains ; nor is it because the little Bresle winds gracefully through its soft bed, beneath forests green in the sunshine, glorious in the gloom ; it is not for the memories of RoUo and William the Conqueror, which fill with visionary shapes, grander than the living, the corri- dors of its half-desolate chateau. It is because these • storied walls, often riyned, often rebuilt, still shelter a gallery of historic portraits* such as the world cannot equal; there is not a Bourbon king, nor a Bourbon battle, nor one great name among the courtier contempo- raries of Bourbons, that is not represented there ; the " Hall of the Guises " contains kindred faces, from all the realms of Christendom ; the " Salon des Rois " holds Joan of Arc, sculptured in marble by the hand of a princess ; in the drawing-room, Pere la Chaise and Marion de rOrme are side by side, and the angelic beauty of Agnes ■Sorel floods the great hall with light, like a sunbeam; and in this priceless treasure-house, worth more to France than almost fair Normandy itself, — this gallery of glory, first arranged at Choisy, then transferred hither to con- sole the solitude of a weeping woman, — the wanderer finds the only remaining memorial of La Grande Mad- emoiselle. • Now removed. THE PURITAN MINISTER. THE PURITAN MINISTER. IT is nine o'clock upon a summer Sunday morning, in the year sixteen hundred and something. The sun looks down brightly on a little forest settlement, around whose expanding fields the great American wilderness recedes each day, withdrawing its bears and wolves and Indians • into an ever remoter distance, — not yet so far removed but that a stout wooden gate at each end of the villnge street indicates that there is danger outside. It would look very busy and thriving in this little place, to-day, but for the Sabbath stillness which broods over every- thing with almost an excess of calm. Even the smoke ascends more faintly than usual from the chimneys of these numerous log-huts and these few framed houses, and since three o'clock yesterday afternoon not a stroke of this world's work has been done. Last night a pre- paratory lecture was held, and now comes the consum- mation of the whole week's life, in the' solemn act of worship. In which settlement of the Massachusetts Col- ony is the great ceremonial to pass before our eyes? If it be Cambridge village, the warning drum is beat- ing its peaceful summons to the congregation. If it be Salem village, a bell is sounding its more ecclesiastic peal, and a red flag is simultaneously hung forth j&om the f 192 THE PURITAN MINISTER. meeting-house, like the auction-flag of later periods, but offering in this case goods without money arnd beyond price. If it be Haverhill village, then Abraham Tyler has been blowing his horn assiduously for half an hour, a service for which Abraham, each ypar, receives a half- pound of pork from every family in town. Be it drum, bell, or horn* that gives the summons, we will draw near to this important building, the centre of the village, the one public edifice, — meeting-house, town- house, schoTol-house, watch-house, all in one. So impor- tant is it, that no one can legally dwell more than a l^alf- mile from it. And yet the people ride to " meeting," short though the distance be, for at yonder oaken block a wife dismounts from behind her husband; — and has it not, moreover, been found needful to impose a fine of forty shillings on fast trptting to and fro? All sins are not modern ones, young gentlemen. We approach nearer still, and come among the civic institutions. This is the pillory, yonder are the stocks, and there is a large wooden cage, a terror to evil-doers, but let us hope empty now. Round the meeting-house is a high wooden paling, to which the law permits citizens to tie their horses, provided it be not donie too near the pas- sage-way. For at that opening stands a sentry, clothed in a suit of armor which is painted black, and cost the town twenty-four shillings by the bill. He bears also a heavy matchlock musket ; his rest, or iron fork, is stuck in the ground, ready to support the weapon ; and he is girded with his bandoleer, or broad leather belt, which sustains a sword and a dozen tin cartridge-boxes. The meeting-house is the second to which the town has treated itself, the first having been "a timber fort, both strong and comely, with flat roof and battlements," THE PURITAN MINISTER. 193 — - a cannon on top, and the cannonade of the gospel down below. But this one cost the town, sixty-three pounds, hard-earned pounds, and carefully expended. It is built of brick, smeared outside with clay, and finished with clay-boards, larger th^n our clapboards, outside of all. It is about twenty-five feet square, with a chimney half the width of the building, and projecting four feet above the thatched roof. The steeple is in the centre, and the bell- rope, if there be one, hangs in the middle of the broad aisle. There are six windows, two on each side and one at each end, some being covered with oiled paper only, others glazed in numerous small panes. And be- tween the windows, on the outside, hang the heads of all the Wolves that have been killed in the township within the year. But the Quakers think that the wolves have cheated the parish and got inside, in >6heep'3 clothing. The people are assembling. The Governor has passed by, with his four vergers bearing halberds before him. The French Popish ambassadors, who have just arrived from Canada, are told the customs of the place, and left to stay quietly in the Governor's house, with sweetmeats, wines, and the liberty of a private walk in the garden. The sexton has just called for the minister, as is his duty twice every Sunday, and, removing his cocked hat, he walks before his superior ofilicer. The minister enters and passes up the aisle, dressed in Geneva cloak, black skull-cap, and black gloves open at thumb and finger, for the better handling of his manuscript. He looks round upon his congregation, a few hundred, recently ** seated " anew for the year, according to rank and age. There are the old men in the pews beneath the pulpit. There are the young men in the gallery, or near the door, wearing rufis, showy belts, gold and silver buttons, 9 M 194 THE PURITAN MINISTER. ^ points " at the knees, and great boots. There are the yoang women, with " silk or tiflPany hoods or scarfs," " embroidered or needle- worked caps," " immoderate great sleeves," " cut-works," — a mystery, — " slash apparel," — another mystery, — "immoderate great vayles, long wings," etc., — mystery on mystery, but all recorded in the statutes, which forbid these splendors to persons of mean estate. There are the wives of the magistrates in prominent seats, and the grammar-school master's wife next them ; and in each pew, close to the mother's elbow, is the little wooden cage for the youngest child, stiU too young to sit alone. All boys are deemed too young to sit alone also ; for, though the emigrants left in Holland the aged deaconess who there presided, birch in hand, to con- trol the rising generation in Sunday meetings, yet the urchins are still herded on the pulpit and gallery-stairs, with four constables to guard them from the allurements of sin. And there sits Sin itself embodied in the shrink- ing form of some humiliated man or woman, placed on a high stool in the principal aisle, bearing the name of some dark crime written on paper and pinned to the garments, or perhaps a Scarlet Letter on the breast. O the silence of this place of worship, after the solemn service sets in ! " People do not sneeze or cough here in public assemblies," says one writer, triumphantly, "so much as in England." The warning caution, " Be short," which the minister has inscribed above his study-door, claims no authority over his pulpit. He may pray his hour, unpausing, and no one thinks it long ; for, indeed, at prayer-meetings four persons will sometimes pray an hour each, — one with confession, one with private peti- tions, a third with petitions for church and kingdom, and a fourth with thanksgiving, — each theme being conscien- THE PURITAN MINISTER. 196 tionsly treated by itself. Then he may preach his hour, and, turning his hour-glass, may say, — but that he can- not foresee the levity to be born in a later century with Mather Byles, -— " Now, my hearers, we will take another glass." In short, this is the pomp and circumstance of glorious preaching. Woe to any one who shall disturb its pro- prieties ! It is written in the statute, " If any one inter- rupt or oppose a preacher in season of worship, they shall be reproved by the magistrate, and on repetition shall pay £5, or stand two hours on a block four feet high, with this inscription in capitals, * A Wanton Gos- peller.' " Nor this alone, but the law stands by the min- ister's doctrine even out of the meeting-house. It is but a few days since Nathaniel Hadlock was sentenced to be severely whipped for declaring that he could receive no profit from Mr. H 's preaching, — since Thomas Maule was mauled to the extent of ten stripes for declaring that Mr, H preached lies, and that his instruction was the doctrine of devils, — since even the wife of Nicholas Phelps was sentenced to pay five pounds or be whipped, for as- serting that this same Mr. H sent abroad his wolves and bloodhounds among the sheep and lambs. Truly, it is a perilous thing to attend public worship in such rever- ential days. However, it is equally dangerous to stay at home ; there are tithing-men to look after the absentees, and any one unnecesGarily absent must pay five shillings, t He may be put in the stocks or in the wooden cage, if i delinquent for a month together. But we must give our attention to the sermon. It is what the congregation will pronounce " a large, nervous, and golden discourse,*' a Scriptural discourse, — like the skeleton of the sea-serpent, all backbone and a great deal 196 THE PURITAN MINISTER. of that. It may be some very special and famous effort. Perhaps Increase Mather is preaching on " The Morning Star," or on " Snow," or on " The Voice of God in Stormy Winds " ; or it may be his sermon entitled " Burnings Be- wailed," to improve the lesson of some great conflagra- tion, which he attributes partly to Sabbath-breaking and partly to the new fashion of monstrous periwigs. Or it may be Cotton Mather, his son, rolling forth his resound- ing discourse during a thunder-storm, entitled " Branto- logia Sacra," — consisting of seven separate divisions or thunderbolts, and filled with sharp lightning from Scrip- ture and the Rabbinical lore, and Cartesian natural philos- ophy. Just as he has proclaimed, " In the thunder there is the voice of the glorious God," a messenger comes has- tening in, as in the Book of job, to tell him that his ovva house has just been struck, and though no person is hurt, yet the house hath been much torn and filled with the lightnings. With what joy and' power he instantly em- ploys for his audience this providential surplus of excite- ment, reminding one irresistibly of feome scientific lecturer who has nearly blown himself up by his own experiments, and proceeds with fresh confidence, the full power of his compound being incontest£Cbly shown. Rising with the emergency, he tells them grandly, that, as he once had in his house a magnet which the thunder changed instantly from north to south, so it were well if the next bolt could change their stubborn souls from Satan to God. But afterward he is compelled to own that Satan also is sometimes permitted to have a hand in the thunder, which is the reason why it breaks oftener on churches than on any other buildings ; and again he admits, pen- sively, at last, that churches and ministers' houses have undoubtedly the larger share. THE PURITAN MINISTER. 197 ( The sermon is over. The more demoralized among the little boys, whose sleepy eyes have been more than once admonished by the hare's-foot wand of the con- stables, — the sharp paw is used for the boys, the soft fur is kept for the smooth foreheads of drowsy maidens, — look up thoroughly awakened now. Bright eyes glance from ben'eath silk or tiffany hoods, for a little interlude is coming. Many things may happen in this pause after the sermon. Questions may be asked of the elders now, which the elders may answer, — if they can. Some lay brother may " exercise " on a text of Scripture, — rather severe exercise, it sometimes turns out. Candidates for the church may be proposed. A baptism may take place. If it be the proper month, the laws against profaning the Sabbath may be read. The last town-regulations may be read ; or, far more exciting, a new marriage may be pub- lished. Or a darker scene may follow, and some offend- ing magistrate may be required to stand upon a bench, in his worst garments, with a foul linen cap drawn close to his eyes, and acknowledge his sins before the pious people^ who reverenced him so lately. These things done, a deacon says impressively, " Breth- ren, now there is time for contribution ; wherefore, as God hath prospered you, so freely offer." Then the people in the galleries come down and march two abreast, "up one lie and down the other," passing before the desk, where in a long " pue " sit the elders and deacons. One of these iiolds a money-box, into which the worshippers put their offerings, usually varying from one to five shillings, ac- cording to their ability and good-will. Some give paper pledges instead ; and others give other valuables, such as ** a fair gilt cup, with a cover," for the communion-service. Then comes a psalm, read,iine after line, out of the " Bay 198 THE PURITAN MINISTER. Psalm-Book," and sung by the people. These psalms are sung regularly through, four every Sunday, and some ten tunes compose the whole vocal range of the congregation. Then come the words, " Blessed are they who hear the word of the Lord and keep it," and then the bene- diction. And then the reverend divme descends from his desk and walks down the aisle, bowing gravely right and left to bis people, not one of whom stirs till the minister has gone out; and then the assembly disperses, each to his own home, unless it be some who have come from a distance, and stay to eat their cold pork and peas in the meeting- house. Roll aside the panorama of the three-hours' Sunday service of two centuries ago, lest that which was not called wearisome in the passing prove wearisome in the delineation now. It needed all this delineation of small details to show how widely the externals of New England church-going have changed since those early days. But what must have been the daily life of that Puritan min- ister for whom- this exhausting service was but one portion of the task of life ! Truly, tbey were "pious and painfull preachers " then, as I have read upon a stone in the old Watertown graveyard ; — " princely preachers " Cotton Mather calls them. He relates that Mr. Cotton, in addi- tion to preaching on Sunday and holding his ordinary lecture every Thursday, preached thrice a week besides, on Wednesday and Thursday early in the morning, and on Saturday afternoon. He also held a daily lecture in his house, which was at last abandoned as being too much thronged, and frequent occasional days occurred, when he would spend six hours " in the word and in prayer.** On his voyage to this country, he being accompanied by two THE PURITAN MINISTER. 199 other ministers, they commonly had three sermons^ day, -*- one after every meal. He was " an universal scholar and a walking library," — he studied twelve hours a day, and said he liked to sweeten his mouth with a piece of Calvin before he went to sleep. A fearful rate of labor ; a strange, grave, quaint, ascetic, rigorous life. It seems a mystery how the Reverend Joshua Moody could have survived to write four thousand sermons, but it is no mystery why the Reverend John Mitchell was called " a truly aged young man ** at thirty, — especially when we consider that he was successor at Cambridge to("the holy, heavenly, sweet-affecting, and soul-ravishing Mr. Shepard,'^ in continuance of whose labors he kept a monthly lecture, ^' wherein he largely handled man's misery by sin and made a mo^ entertain- ing exposition of the Book of Genesis." For the minister's week-days were more ai^ous than his Sundays, and to have for each parish both pastor and teacher still left a formidable share of duty for each. He must visit families during several afternoons in every week, sending previous notice, so that children and domes- tics might be ready for catechising. He was " much visited for counsel " in his own honie, and must set apart one day in the week for cases of conscience, ranging from the most fine-drawn self-tormentings up to the most unnatural secret crimes. He must often go to lectures in neigh- boring towns, a kind of religious dissipation which in- creased so fast that the Legislature at last interfered to restrict it He must have five or six separate seasons for private prayer daily, devoting each day in the week to special meditations and intercessions, — as Monday to his family, Tuesday to enemies, Wednesday to the churches, Thursday to other societies, Friday to persons afflicted, 200 THE PURITAN MINISTER. and Saturday to his own soul. He must have private fasts, spending whole days locked in his study and whole nights prostrate on the floor. Cotton Mather " thought himself starved," unless he fasted once a month at farthest, while he often did it twice in a week. Then there were public fasts quite frequently, ^ because of sins, blasting, mildews, drought, grasshoppers, caterpillars, sraall-pox,** " loss of cattle by cold and frowns of Providence." Perhaps a mouse and a snake had a battle in the neighborhood, and the minister must expound it as '^ symbolizing the conflict betwixt Satan and God's poor people,*' the latter being the mouse triumphant. Then if there were a military ex- pedition, the minister might think it needful to accompany it If there were even a muster, he must open and close it with prayer, or, in his absence, the captain must officiate instead. One would naturally add to this record of labors the attendance on weddings and funerals. It is strange how few years are required to make a usage seem ancestral, or to revive it after long neglect. Who now remembers that our progenitors for more than a century disused religious services on both these solemn occasions? Magistrates alone could perform the marriage ceremony ; though it was thought to be carrying the monopoly quite too far, when Governor Bellingham, in 1641, officiated at his own. Prayer was absolutely forbidden at funerals, as was^done also by Calvin at Geneva, by John Knox in Scot- land, by the English Puritans in the Westminster Assem- bly, and by the French Huguenots. The bell might ring, the friends' might walk, two and two, to the grave ; but there must be no prayer uttered. The secret was, that the traditions of the English and Romish Churches must be systematically set aside. ^^ Doctor," said King James TME PURITAN MINISTER. 201 to a Puritan iivine, " do you go barefoot because the Papists wear slipes and stockings ? " Eyen the origin of the frequent New England habit of eating salt fish on Saturday is supposed to have been the fact that Roman Catholics eat it on Friday. But if there were no prayers said on these occasions, there were sermons. Mr. John Calf, of Newbury, de- scribed one specimen of funeral sermon in immortal verse : — " On Sabbath day he went his way, As he was used to do, God's house unto, that they might know What he had for to show; God's holy will he must fulfil, For it was his desire For to declare a sermon rare Concerning Madam Fryer." The practice of wedding discourses was handed down into the last century, and sometimes beguiled the persons con- cerned into rather startling levities. For instance, when Parson Smith's daughter Mary was to marry young Mr. Cranch, (what graceful productions of pen and pencil have come to this generation from the posterity of that union !) the father permitted the saintly maiden to decide on her own text for the sermon, and she meekly selected, " Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her,'* and the discourse was duly pro- nounced. But when her wild young sister Abby was bent on marrying a certain Squire Adams, called John, whom her father disliked and would not even invite to dinner, she boldly suggested for her text, " John came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil." But no sermon stands recorded under this prefix, 9* 202 THE PURITAN MINISTER. though Abby lived to be the wife of one President of the United States and mother of another. The Puritan minister had public duties also upon him. "New England being a country," said Cotton Mather, "whose interests are remarkably enwrapped in theologi- cal circumstances, ministers ought to interest themselves in politico." Indeed, for many years they virtually con- trolled the franchise, inasmuch as only male church-mem- bers could vote or hold office, at least in the Massachusetts Colony. Those malecontents who petitioned to enlarge the suffrage were fined and imprisoned in 1646, and even in 1664 the only amendment was by permitting non-church-members to vote on a formal certificate to their orthodoxy from the minister. The government they aimed at was not democracy, but theocracy. " God never did ordain democracy as a fit government," said Cotton. Accordingly, when Cotton and Ward framed their first code, Ward's portion was rejected by the Colony as heathen, — that is, based on Greek and Roman models, not Mosaic, — and Cotton's was afterwards rebuked in England as "fanatical and absurd." But the govern- ment finally established was an ecclesiastical despotism, V tempered by theological controversy. ^V In Connecticut it was first the custom, and then the order, lasting as late as 1708, that " the ministers of the gospel should preach a sermon, on the day appoisted by law for the choice of civil rulers, proper for the direc- tion of the town in the work before them." They wrote state papers, went on embassies, and took the lead at town- meetings. At the exciting gubernatorial election in 1637, Rev. John Wilson, minister of the First Church in Bos- ton, not satisfied with " taking the stump " for his candi- date, took to a full-grown tree and harangued the people THE PURITAN MINISTER. 203 from among the boughs. Perhaps the tree may have been the. Great Elm which still ornaments the Common ; but one sees no chips of that other old block among its branches now. One would expect that the effect of this predominant clerical influence would have been to make the aim of the Puritan codes lofty, their consistency tinflinching, their range narrow, and their penalties severe, — and it cer- tainly was so. Looking at their educational provisions, they' seem all noble ; looking at their schedule of sins and retributions, one wonders how any rational being could have endured them for a day. Communities, like individuals, furnish virtues piecemeal. Roger Williams, with all his wise toleration, bequeathed to Rhode Island no ^uch sys- tem of schools as his persecutors framed for Massachu- setts. But the children who were watched and trained thus carefully might be put to death, if they " cursed their orderly parents " after the age of sixteen ; — not that the penalty was ev^er inflicted, but it was on the statute-book. Sabbath-breaking was placed on a level with murder, -— though Calvin himself had allowed the old men to play at bowls and the young men to practise military training, after afternoon service, at Geneva. Down to 1769 not even a funeral could take place on Sunday in Massachu- setts, without license from a magistrate. Then the stocks and the wooden cage were in frequent use, though " bar- barous and cruel" punishments were forbidden in 1641. Scolds and railers were set on a ducking-stool and dipped over head and ears three times, in running water, if pos- sible. Mrs. Oliver, a troublesome theologian, was silenced with a cleft stick applied to her tongue. Thomas Scott, in 1649, was sentenced for some offence to learn "the chatachise," or be flned ten shillings, and, afler due con- 204 THE PURITAN MINISTER. j^ideratioD, paid the fine. Sometimes offenders, with a refinement of cruelty, were obliged to " go and talk to the elders." And if anj youth made matrimonial overtures to a young woman without the consent of her parents, or, in their absence, of the County Court, he was first fined and then imprisoned. A new etymology for the word " " courting." A good instance of this mingled infiuence was in the relation of the ministers to the Indian wars. Roger Wil- liams, even when banished and powerless, could, keep the peace with the natives. But when the brave Miantonimo was to be dealt with for suspected treason, and the civil au- thorities had decided, that, though it was unsafe to set him at liberty, they yet had no ground to put him to death, the matter was finally referred to five " elders," and Uncas was straightway authorized to slay him in cold blood. The Pequots were first defeated and then exterminated, and their heroic King Philip, a patriot according to his own standard, was hunted like a wild beast, his body quartered and set on poles, his head exposed as a trophy for twenty years on a gibbet in Plymouth, and one of his hands sent to Boston : then the ministers returned thanks, and one said that they had prayed the bullet into Philip's heart. Nay, it seems that in 1677, on a Sunday in Mar- blehead, " the women, as they came out of the meeting- house, fell upon two Indians, that had been brought in as captives, and in a tumultuous way very barbarously mur- dered them," in revenge for the death of some fisher- men : a moral application which throws a singular light on the style of gospel prevailing inside the meeting- house that day. But it is good to know, on the other side, that, when the Commissioners of the United Colo- nies had declared an Indian war, and the Massachusetts THE PURITAN MINISTER. 205 Colony had afterwards become convinced that the war was unrighteous, the troops were recalled, though already- far towards the field, no pride or policy preventing the original order from being rescinded. These were some of the labors of the clergy. But no human being lives without relaxation, and they may have had theirs. True, " ministers have little to joy in in this world," wrote old Norton ; and one would think so, on reading the dismal diaries, printed or manuscript, of those days. " I can compare with any man living for fears," said Hooker. " I have sinned myself into darkness," said Bailey. "Many times have I been ready to lay down my ministry, thinking God had forsaken me." " I was almost in the suburbs of hell all day." Yet who can say that this habit of agonizing introspection wholly shut out the trivial enjoyments of daily life ? Who drank, for in- stance, those twelve gallons of sack and those six gallons of white wine which the General Court thought it con- venient that the Auditor should send, " as a small testi- mony of the Court's respiect, to the reverend assembler of Elders at Cambridge," in 1644? Did the famous Cam- bridge Platform rest, like the earth in the Hebrew cos- mology, upon the waters,^ — strong' waters ? Was it only the Derry Presbyterians who would never give up a p'int of doctrine nor a pint of rum ? It is startling to remem- ber that in 11685 it was voted, on occasion of a public funeral, that " some person be appointed to look after the burning of the wine and the heating of the cider," and to hear that on this occasion there were thirty-two gallons of wine and still more of cider, with one hundred and four pounds bf that insnaring' accessory, sugar. Francis Hig- ginson, in writing back to the mother country that one sup of New England's air was better than a whole draught 206 THE PURITAfT MINISTER of Old England's ale, gave convincing proof that he had tasted both beverages. But, after all, the very relaxations of the Puritan minister were more spiritual than spiritu- ous, and to send forth a good Nineteenthlj from his own lips was more relishing than to have the best Double X go in. In spite of the dignity of this influential class, they were called only Elders for a long time. Titles were carefully adjusted in those days. The commonalty bore the appellations of Goodman and Goodwife, and one of Roger Williams's offences was his wishing to limit these terms to those who gave some signs of deserving them. The name ^^ Mr." was allowed to those who had taken the degree of Master of Arts at College, and also to profes- eional men, eminent merchants, miUtary officers, and mates of vessels, and their wives and daughters mono^b^ lized the epithet " Mrs." Mr. Josiah Plastow, when he had stolen four baskets of corn from the Indians, was de- grjided into plain Josiah. " Mr." seems to have meant simply " My Sir," and the clergy were often called "Sir'* merely, a title given also to college graduates, on Com- mencement programmes, down to the time of the Revolu- tion. And so strong was the Puritan dislike to the idol- atry of saints' names, that the Christian Apostles were sometimes designated as Sir Paul, Sir Peter, and Sir James. In coming to the private affairs of the Puritan divines, it is humiliating to find that anxieties about salary are of no modern origin. The highest compensation I can find recorded is that of John Higginson in 1671, who had £ 1 60 voted him " in country produce," which he was glad, however, to exchange for £ 120 in solid cash. Solid cash included beaver-skins, black and white wampum; THE PURITAN MINISTER. 207 beads, and musket-balls, value one farthing. Mr. Wood- bridge in Newbury at this same time had £ 60, and Mr. Epes preached in Salem for twenty shillings a Sunday, half in money and half in provisions. Holy Mr. Cotton used to say that nothing was cheap in New England but milk and ministers. Down to 1700, Increase Mather says, most salaries were less than £ 100, which he thinks " might account for the scanty harvests enjoyed by our farmers." He and his son Cotton both tell the story of a town where " two very eminent ministers were only al- lowed £30 per annum" and "the God who will not be mocked made them lose £ 300 worth of cattle that year." The latter also complains thiat the people were very will- ing to consider the ministers the stars, rather than the mere lamps, of the churches, provided they, like the stars, would shine without earthly contributions. He also calls the terms of payment, in. one of his long words, " Synecdotical Pay," — in allusion to that rhetor- ical figure by which a part is used for the whole. And apparently various causes might produce this Synecdoche. For I have seen an anonymous " Plea for Ministers of the Gospel," in 1706, which complains that "young min- isters have often occasion in their preaching to speak things offensive to some of the wealthiest people in town, on which occasion they may withhold a considerable part of their maintenance." It is a comfort to think how en- tirely this source of discomfort, at least, is now eradicated from the path of the clergy ; and it is painful to think that there ever was a period when wealthy parishioners did not enjoy the delineation of their own sins. However, the ministerial households contrived to-sub- sist, in spite of rhetorical tropes and malecontent million- naires. The Puritan divine could commonly afford not 208 THE PURITAN MINISTER. only to keep house, but to keep horse likewise, and to enjoy the pet professional felicity of printing his own sermons. As to the last privilege there could have been no great trouble, for booksellers were growing rich in New England as early as 1677, — according to the traveller Dunton, who was himself in that line of business, — and Cotton Mather published three hundred and eighty-two different works for his own share. Books were abundant enough at that day, though somewhat grim and dingy, and two complete Puritan libraries are preserved in the rich col- ' lection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, — without whose treasures, let me add, this modest mono- graph never could have been written. As for the min- ister's horse, the moral sentiment of the community pro- tected him faithfully ; for a man was fined in Newbury for "killing our elder's mare, and a special good beast she was." The minister's house was built by the town ; in Salem it was "13 feet stud, 23 by 42, four chimnies, and no gable-ends," — so that the House with Seven Gables belonged to somebody else ; — and the Selectmen ordered all men to appear with teams on a certain day and put the minister's grounds in order. Inside the parsonage-house, however, there was some- times trouble. Rev. Ezekiel Rogers wrote in 1657 to his brother in England : " Much ado I have with my own family ; hard to get a servant who enjoys catechising or family duties. I had a rare blessing of servants in England, and those I brought over were a blessing ; but the young brood -doth much afflict me." Probably the minister's wife had the worst of this ; but she seems to have been generally, like the modern minister's wife, a saint, and could bear it. Cotton Mather, indeed, quotes triumphantly the Jewish phrase for a model woman, — THE PURITAN MINISTER, 209 " one who deserves to many a priest " ; and one of the most singular passages in the history of the human heart is this old gentleman's own narrative, in his manuscript diary, of a passionate love-adventure, in his later years, with a fascinating young girl, an " ingenious child," as he calls her, whom his parish thought by no means a model for her sex, but from whom it finally took three days of solitary fasting and prayer to wean him. He was not the only Puritan minister who bestowed his heart somewhat strangely. Rev. John Mitchell, who succeeded the soul-ravishing Shepard at Cambridge,* as aforesaid, married his predecessor's widow " on the gen- eral recommendation of her," and the college students were greatly delighted, as one might imagine. Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, in 1691, wooed the Widow Avery in a written discourse, which I have seen in manuscript, arranged -under twelve different heads, — one of which treats of the prospect of his valuable life being preserved longer by her care. She having children of her own, he offers mysteriously to put some of his o^n children " out of the way," if necessary, — a hint which becomes for- midable when one remembers that he was the author of that once famous theological poem, " The Day of Doom," in which he relentingly assigned to infants, because they had sinned only in Adam, ^Mhe easiest room in hell." But he wedded the lady, and they were apparently as happy as if he had not been a theologian ; and I have seen the quaint little heart-shaped docket he gave her, bearing an anchor and a winged heart and "Thine forever." Let us glance now at some of the larger crosses of the Puritan minister. First came a "young brood " of here- tics to torment him. Gorton's followers were exasperat- ing enough ; they had to be confined in irons separately, N 210 THE PURITAN MINISTER. j one in each town, on pain of death, if they preached their doctrines, — and of course they preached them. But their offences and penalties were light, compared with those of the Quakers. When the Quakers assembled by them- selves, their private doors might be broken open, — a thing which Lord Chatham said the king of England could not do for any one, — they might be arrested with- out warrant, tried without jury, for the first oflfence \f% fined, for the second lose one ear, for the third lose the other eai^ and for the fourth be bored with red-hot iron through the tongue, — though this last penalty remained a dead letter. They could be stripped to the waist, tied to a cart, and whipped through town after town, — three women were whipped through eleven towns, eighty miles, -i— but afterwards the number was limited to three. Their testimony was invalid, their families attainted, and those who harbored them were fined forty shillings an hour. They might be turned out shelterless among wolves and bears and frosts ; they could be branded H for Her- etic, and B for Hogue ; they could be sold as slaves ; and their graves must not be fenced to keep oflP wild beasts, lest their poor afflicted bodies should find rest there. Yet in this same age female Quakers had gone as mis- sionaries to Malta and to Turkey and returned unharmed. No doubt the monks and the Sultan must have looked on the " plain clothing " as the Bloomer costume of its day, — and the Inquisition imprisoned the missionaries, though the Sultan did not. But meanwhile the Quaker women in New England might be walking to execution with their male companions — like Mary Dyer in Bos- ton — under an armed guard of two hundred, led on by a minister seventy years old, and the fiercer for every year. When they asked Mary Dyer, "Are you not THE PURITAN MINISTER. 211 ashamed to walk thus hand in hand between two young men ? " she answered, " No, this is to me an hour of the greatest joy I could enjoy in this world. No tongue could utter and no heart understand the sweet influence of the Spirit which now I feel." Then they placed her on the scaffold, and covered her face with a handkerchief which the Reverend Mr. Wilson lent the hangman ; and when they heard that she was reprieved, she would not come down, saying that she would suflfer with her breth- ren. And suffer death she did, at last, and the Reverend Mr. Wilson made a pious ballad on her execution. It is no wonder, if some persons declare that about this time the wheat of Massachusetts began to be generally blasted, and the peas to grow wormy. It is no wonder, that, when the witchcraft excitement came on, the Quakers called it a retribution for these things. But let us be just, even to the unjust. Toleration was a new-bom virtue- in those days, and one which ho Puritan ever for a moment recognized as such, or asked to have exercised toward himself. In England they did not wish, to be tolerated for a day as sectaries, for they claimed to have authority as the one true church. They held with Pym, that *Mt is the duty of legislators to establish the true religion and to punish false," — a doctrine equally fatal, whether applied to enforce the right theology or the wrong. They objected to the Church of England, not that it persecuted, but that its persecution was wrongly aimed. It is, therefore, equally absurd to praise them for a tolera- tion they never professed, and to accuse them of any in- consistency when they practised intolerance. They have been so loosely praised, that they are as loosely blamed. What was great in them was their heroism of soul, not their largeness. They sought the American wilderness. 212 THE PURITAN MINISTER. not to indulge the consciences of others, but their own. They said to the Quakers, " We seek not your death, but your absence." All their persecution, after all, was an alternative sentence ; all they asked of the Quakers was to keep out of their settlements and let them alone. Moreover, their worst penalties were borrowed from the English laws, and only four offenders were put to death from the beginning, — of course, four too many. Again, it is to be remembered that the Quaker pecu- liarities were not theological only, but political and social also. Everything that the Puritan system of government asserted the Quakers denied ; they rendered no allegiance, owned no laws, paid no taxes, bore no arms. With the best possible intentions, they subverted vail established order. Then their modes of action were very often in- temperate and violent. One can hardly approve the con- demnation pronounced by Cotton Mather upon a certain Rarey among the Friends in those days, who could con- trol a mad bull that would rend any other man. But it was oftener the zealots themselves who needed taming. Running naked through the public streets, — coming into meeting dressed in sackcloth, with asl^s on their heads and nothing on their feet, — or sitting there with their hats on, groaning and rocking to and fro, in spite of elders, deacons, and tithingmen : these were the vagaries of the more fanatical Quakers, though always repudiated by the main body. The Puritans found themselves reproached with permitting these things, and so took refuge in out- rageous persecutions, which doubled them. Indeed, the Quakers themselves began to persecute, on no greater provocation, in Philadelphia, thirty years afterwards, — playing over again upon George Keith and his followers the same deluded policy of fines and imprisonment from THE PURITAN MINISTER. 213 which they had just escaped ; — as minorities have perse- cuted smaller minorities eVer since intolerance began. Indeed, so far as mere language went, the minority did their full share. Grave divines did not like to be pelted with such epithet as these : " Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and grin- ning dog ! thou mole ! thou tinker ! thou lizard ! thou bell of no metal but the tone of a kettle I thou wheelbar- row ! thou whirlpool ! thou whirligig ! thou firebrand ! thou moon-calf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou gor- mandizing priest f thou bane of reason and beast of the earth ! thou best to be spared of all mankind ! " — all of which are genuine epithets from the Quaker books of that period, and termed by Cotton Mather, who collected them, " quills of the porcupine." They surpass even Dr. Chauncy's cat alogue of the unsavory epi thets used by W hitefield^and Tennent a century later ; ancT it was not likely that they would be tolerated by a race whose rever- ence for men in authority was so comprehensive that they actually fined some one for remarking that Major Phil- lips's old mare was as lean as an Indian's dog. There is a quaint anecdote preserved, showing the con- tinuance of the Quaker feud in full vigor as lately aa 1705. A youth among the Friends wished to espouse a fair Puritan maiden ; but the Quakers disapproved his marrying out of their society, and the Congregationalista his marrying into theirs ; so in despair he thus addressed her : " Ruth, let us break from this unreasonable bondage. I will give up my religion, and thou shalt give up thine ; and we will marry and go into the Church of England, and go to the Devil together." And they fulfilled the resolution, the Puritan historian says, so far as going into the Church, and marrying, and staying there for life. 214 THE PURITAN MINISTER, With the same careful discrimination we must try to study the astonishing part played by the ministers in the witchcraft delusions. It must Jbe remembered that the belief in this visitation w^s no new or peculiar thing in New England. The Church, the Scriptures, the mediaeval laws, had all made it a capital crime. There had been laws against it in England for a hundred years. Bishop Jewell had complained to Queen Elizabeth of the alarm- ing increase of witches and sorcerers. Sir Thomas Browne had pronounced it flat atheism to doubt them. High legal and judicial authorities, as Dalton, Keeble, Sir Matthew Hale, had described this crime as definitely and seriously as any other. In Scotland four thousand had suffered death for it in ten years ; Cologne, Nurem- berg, Geneva, Paris, were executing hundreds every year ; even in 1749 a girl was burnt alive in Wiirtzburg ; and is it strange, if, during all that wild excitement, Mas- sachusetts put to death twenty ? The only wonder is in the independence of the Rhode Island people, who de- clared that "there were no witches on the earth, nor devils, — except " (as they profanely added) " the New England ministers, and such as they." John Higginson sums it up best : " They proceeded in their integrity with a zeal of God against sin^ according to their best light and law and evidence." " But there is a question," he wisely adds, " whether some of the laws, customs, and privileges used by judges and juries in England, which were followed as patterns here, were not insufficient." Cotton Mather also declared that he ob- served in judges and juries a conscientious endeavor to do the thing which was right, and gives a long list of the legal authorities whom they consulted ; observing, finally, that the fact of Mij confessions was, after all, the one irresistible vindication of their strong measures. THE PURITAN MINISTER. 215 It must have been so. Common sense and humanity might have refuted every other evidence than that of the victims themselves. But what were the authorities to do, when, in addition to all legal and Scriptural precedents, the prisoners insisted on entering a plea of guilty ? When Goody E testified that she and two others rode from Andover to a witch-meeting on a broomstick, and the stick broke and she fell and was still lame from it, — when her daughter testified that she rode on the same stick, and confirmed all the details of the casualty, — when the granddaughter confirmed them also, and added that she rode on another stick, and they all signed Satan's book together, — when W. B ^ aged forty, testified that Satan assembled a hundred fine blades near Salem Meeting-House, and the trumpet sounded, and bread and wine were carried round, and Satan was like a lilack sheep, and wished them to destroy the minister s house (by thunder probably), and set up his kingdom, and " then all would be well," — when one woman summoned her three children and some neighbors and a sister and a domestic, who all testified that she was a witch and so were they all, — what could be done for such prisoners by judge or jury, in an age which held witchcraft to be possible ? It was only the i^apid rate of increase which finally stopped the convictions. One thing is certain, that this strange delusion, a semi- comedy to us, — though part of the phenomena may find their solution in laws not yet unfolded, — was the sternest of tragedies to those who lived in it. Conceive, for an in- stant, of believing in the visible presence and labors of the arch-fiend in a peaceful community. Yet from the bottom of their souls these strong men held to it, and they waged a hand-to-hand fight with Satan all their days. 216 THE PURITAN MINISTER. Very inconveniently the opponent sometimes dealt his blows, withaL Surely it could not be a pleasant thing to a sound divine, just launched upon his seven teen-headed discourse, to have a girl with wild eyes and her hair about her ears start up and exclaim, " Parson, your text is too long," — or worse yet, " Parson, your sermon is too long," — or most embarrassing of all, " There *s a great yellow bird sitting on the parson's hat in tlie pulpit/' But these formidable interruptions veritably happened, and received the stem discipline in such cases made and provided. But beside Quakers and witches, the ministers^ had other female tormentors to deal with. There was the perpetual anxiety of the unregenerated toilet. " Im- modest apparel, laying out of hair, borders, naked necks and arms, or, as it were, pinioned with superfluous ribbons," — these were the things which tried men's souls in those days, and the statute-books and private journals are full of such plaintive inventories of the implements of sin. Things known as " slash apparel " seem to have been an infinite source of anxiety ; there must be only one slash on each sleeve and one in the back. Men also must be prohibited from shoulder-bands of undue width, double ruffs and cuffs, and " immoderate great breeches." Part of the solicitude was for modesty, part for gravity, part for economy : none must dress above their condition. In 1652, three men and a woman were fined ten shillings each and costs for wearing silver-lace, another for broad bone-lace, another for tiffany, and another for a silk hood. Alice Flynt was accused of a silk hood, but, proving herself worth more than two hundred pounds, escaped unpunished. Jonas Fairbanks, about the same time, was charged with " great boots," and the evidence went hard THE PURITAN MINISTER. 217 against Lim ; but he was fortunately acquitted, and the credit of the family saved. The question of veils seems to have rocked the Massa- chusetts Colony to its foundations, and was fully dis- cussed at Thursday Lecture, March 7, 1634. Holy Mr. Cotton was utterly and unalterably opposed to veilsy regarding them as a token of submission to husbands in an unscriptural degree. It is pleasant to think that there could be an unscriptural extent of such submission, in those times. But Governor Endicott and Bev. Mr. Williams resisted stoutly, quoting Paul, as usual in such cases ; so Paul, veils, and vanity carried the day. But afterward Mr. Cotton came to Salem to preach for- Mr. Skelton, and did not miss his chance to put in his solemn protest against veils ; he said they were a custom not to be tolerated ; and so the ladies all came to meeting with- out their veils in the afternoon. Beginning with the veils, the eye of authority^ was next turned on what was under them. In 1675 it was decided, that, as the Indians had done much harm of late, and the Deity was evidently displeased with something, the General Court should publish a list of the evils of the time. And among the twelve items of contrition stood this : " Long hair like women's hair is worn by some men, either their own or others' hair made into periwigs; — jand by some women wearing borders of hair, and their cutting, curling, and immodest laying out of their hair, which practice doth increase, especially among the younger sort" Not much was effected, how- ever, — "divers of the elders' wives," as Winthrop lets out, *' being in some measure partners in this disorder." Tiie use of wigs also, at first denounced by the clergy, was at last countenanced by them : in portraits later than 10 218 THE PURITAN MINISTER. 1700 they usuallj replace the black skull-cap. of earlier pictures, aud in 1752 the tables had so far turned that a church-member in Newbury refused communion because " the pastor wears a wigg." Yet Increase Mather .thought they played no small part in producing the Boston Fire. " Monstrous Periwigs, puch as some of our church-mem- bers indulge in, which make them resemble the Locusts that came out of y* Bottomless Pit. Rev. ix. 7, 8, — and as an eminent Divine call them. Horrid Bushes of Vanity ; such strange apparel as is contrary to the light of Nature and to express Scripture. 1 Cor. xi. 14, 15. Such pride is enough to provoke the Lord to kindle fires in all the towns in the country." Another vexation was the occasional arrival of false prophets in a community where every man was expected to have a current supply of religious experiences always ready for circulation. There was a certain hypocritical Dick Swayn, for instance, a seafaring man, who gave much trouble ; and E. F., — for they usually appear by initials, — who, coming to New Haven one Saturday , evening, and being dressed in black, was taken for a min- ister, and asked to preach : he was apparently a little in- sane, and at first talked ** demurely," but at last " railed like Babshakeh," Cotton Mather says. There was also M. J., a Welsh tanner, who finally stole his employer's leather breeches and set up for a preacher, — less inno- cently apparelled than George Fox. But the worst of all was one bearing the since sainted name of Samuel May. This vessel of wrath appeared in 1699, indorsed as a man of a sweet gospel spirit, — though, indeed, one of his-in- dorsers had himself been " a scandalous fire-ship among the churches." Mather declares that every one went a-Maying after this man, whom he maintains to have been THE PURITAN MINISTER. 219 # • a barber previously, and who knew no Latin, Greek, Hebrew, nor even English, — for (as he indignantly asserts) " there were eighteen horrid false spells, and not one point, in one very short note I received from him." This doubtful personage copied his sermons from a volume by his namesake, Dr. Samuel Bolton, — " Sam the Doc- tor and Sam the Dunce," Mather calls them. Finally, " this eminent worthy stranger," Sam, who was no dunce, after all, quarrelled with his parish for their slow pay- ments, and '^ flew out like a Dragon, spitting this among other fire at them: *I see, no longer pipe, no longer dance,' — so that they came to fear he was a cheat, and wish they had never seen him." Then " the guilty /ellow, having bubbled the silly neighbors of an incredible number of pounds, on a sudden was gone," and Cotton Mather sent a letter afler him, which he declares to have been the worst penalty the man suffered. It is safer to say little of the theological scheme of the Puritan ministers, lest the present writer be pronounced a Wanton Gospeller, and have ho tithingman to take his part. But however it may be with the regular standards of theology of that period, every one could find a suffi- cient variety to suit him among its heresies. Eighty-two "pestilent heresies" were counted, as having already sprung up in 1637; others say one^undred and six; others, two hundred and ten. The Puritans kept Rhode Island for what housekeepers call an " odd drawer," into which to crowd all these eccentricities. It was said, that, if any man happened to lose his religious opinion, he might be sure to find it again at some village in Rhode' Island. Thither went Roger Williams and his Baptists ; thither went Quakers and Ranters; thither went Ann Hutchinson, that extraordinary woman, who divided the 220 THE PURITAN MINISTER, whole politics of the country by her Antinomian doctrines, denouncing the formalisms around her, and converting the strongest men, like Cotton and Vane, to her opinions. Thither went also Samuel Gorton, a man of no ordinary power, who proclaimed a mystical union with God in love, thought that heaven and hell were in the mind alone, but esteemed little the clergy and the ordinances. The Colony was protected also by the thoughtful and chival- rous Vane, who held that water baptism had had its day, and that the Jewish Sabbath should give place to the modern Sunday. Air these, and such as these, were called generally " Seekers " by the Puritans, — who claimed for themselves that they had found that which they sought. It is the old distinction ; but for which destiny i* the ship built, to be afloat or to be at anchor ? Such were those pious worthies, the men whose names are identified with the leadership of the New England Colonies, — Cotton, Hooker, Norton, Shepard, the Higgin- sons, the Mathers. To these might be added many an obscurer name, preserved in the quaint epitaphs of the " Magnalia " : — Blackman, " in spite of his name, a Nazarene whiter than snow " ; — Partridge, " a hunted partridge," yet " both a dove and an eagle " ; — Ezekiel Rogers, "a tree of knowledge, whose apples the very children might pluck "; — Nathaniel Rogers, "a very lively preacher and a very preaching liver, he loved his church as if it had been his family and he taught his family as if it had been his church " ; — Warham, the first who preached with notes, and who suffered agonies of doubt respecting the Lord's Supper ; — Stone, " both a loadstone and a fiint stone," and who set the self- sacri- ficing example of* preaching only pne hour* THE PURITAN MINISTER. 221 • These men had mingled traits of good and evil, like all mankind, — nobler than their descendants in some attri- butes, less noble in others. The most strait-laced Massa- chusetts Calvinist of these days would have been disci- plined by them for insujOTerable laxity, and yet their mod- ern successor would count it utter shame, perhaps, to own a slave in his family or to drink rum-punch at an ordination, — which Puritan divines might do without rebuke. Not one of them has left on record a statement 60 broad and noble as that of Roger Williams : " To be content with food and raiment, — to mind not our own,, but every man the things of another, — yea, and to suffer wrong, and to part with what we judge to be right, yea, our own lives, and, as poor women martyrs have said, as many as there be hairs upon our heads, for the name of God and for the Son of God's sake, — this is humanity, this is Christianity ; the rest is but formality and picture- courteous idolatry, and Jewish and Popish blasphemy against the Christian religion." And yet the mind of Hoger Williams was impulsive, erratic, and unstable, compared with theirs ; and in what respect has the work they left behind them proved, after the testing of two centuries, less solid or durable than his ? These men were stern even to cruelty against aU that they held evil, — Satan and his supposed emissaries, witches, Quakers, Indians, negligeAt parishioners, dis- obedient offspring, men with periwigs, and women in slash apparel. Yet the tenderest private gentleness often lay behind this gloomy rigor of the conscience. Some of them would never chastise a son or daughter, in spite of Solomon ; others would write in Greek char- acters in their old almanacs quaint little English verses on the death of some beloved child. That identical 222 THE PURITAN MINISTER. ** Priest Wilson," who made the ballad at Mary Dyer's execution, attended a military muster one day. '^ Sir," said some one, ^ I '11 tell you a great thing : here 's a mighty body of people, and there 's not seven of them all but loves Mr. Wilson." « Sir," it was replied, « I '11 tell you as good a thing : here 's a mighty body of peo- ple, and there 's not one of them all but Mr. Wilson loves him." Mr.. Cotton was a terror to evil-doers, yet, when a company of men came along from a tavern and said, '^ Let us put a trick upon Old Cotton," and one of them came and cried in his ear, <' Cotton, thou art an old fool," — "I know it, I know it," retorted cheerily the venerable man, and pungently added, ^^The Lord make both me and thee wiser ! " Mr. Hooker was once reproving a boy in the street, who boldly replied, " I see you are in a passion ; I will not answer you," and so ran away. It contradicts all one's notions of Puritan pro- priety, and yet it seems* that the good man, finding after- wards that the boy was not really guilty, sent for him to apologize, and owned himself to have been wrong. What need to speak of the strength and courage, the disinterestedness and zeal, with which they bore up the fortunes of the Colony on their shoulders, and put that iron into the New England blood which has since sup- plied the tonic for a continent? It was said of Mr. Hooker, that he was " a person who, while doing his Mas- ter's work, would put a king in his pocket " ; and it was thus with them all : they would pocket anything but a bribe to themselves or an insult to God or their profession. They flinched from no reproof that was needed : " Sharp rebukes make sound Christians," was a proverb among them. They sometimes lost their tempers, and sometimes their parishes, but never their independence. I find a THE PURITAN MINISTER. 223 hundred anecdotes of conscientious cruelty laid up against them, but not one of cowardice or of compromise. They may have bored the tongues of others with a bar of iron, but they never fettered their own tongues with a bar of gold, — as some African tribes tliink it a saintly thing to do, and not African tribes alone. There was such an absolute righteousness among them, that to this day evejy man of New England descent lives partly on the fund of virtuous habit they accumulated./ And, on the oth^r hand, every man of the many whd still stand ready to indorse everything signed by a D. D. — without even adding the commercial E. E., for Errors Excepted — is in part the victim of the over-influence they obtained. Yet there was a kind of democracy in that vast influence also: the Puritans were far more thorough CoDgregationalists than their successors; they recognized no separate clerical class,, and the ^^ elder" was only the highest officer of his own church. Each re- ligious society could choose and ordain its own minister, or dispense with all ordaining services at will, without the slightest aid or hindrance from council or consociation. So the stem theology of the pulpit only reflected the stem theology of the pews ; the minister was but the representative man. If the ministers were recognized as spiritual guides, it was because they were such to the men of their time, whatever they might be to ours. Demonax of old, Vhen asked about the priests' money, said, that, if they were really the leaders of the people, they could not have too much payment, — or too little, if it were otherwise. I believe that on these conditions the Puritan ministers well earned their hundred and sixty pounds a year, — with a discount of forty pounds, if paid in wampum-beads and musket-balls. What they took in musket-balls they 224 THE PURITAN MINISTER. paid back in the heavier ammunition of moral truth. Here is a specimen of their grape-shot: — " My fathers and brethren," said John Higginson (whom the laborious Dr. Griswold considers to have been " in- comparably the best writer, native or foreign, who lived in New England during the first hundred years of her colonization"), " this is never to be forgotten, that our New England is originally a plantation of religion, and not a plantation of trade. Let merchants and such as are mak- ing cent per cent remember this. Let others who have come over since at sundry times remember this, that world- ly gain was not the end and design of the people of New England, but religion. And if any man among us make religion as twelve and the world .as thirteen, let such a man know he hath neither the spirit of a true New England man^ nor yet of a sincere Christian." FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 10* • FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. EVERY man when he first crosses the ocean is a Columbus to himself, no matter how many voyages by other navigators he may have heard described or read recorded. Geographies convince only the brain, not the senses, that the globe is round ; and when personal ex- perience exhibits the fact, it is as wonderful as if never before suggested. You have dwelt for weeks within one unbroken loneliness of sea and sky, with nothing that seemed solid in the universe but the bit of painted wood on which you have floated. Suddenly one morning something looms high and cloudlike far away, an^ you are told that it is land. Then you feel, with all ignorant races, as if the ship were a god, thus to find its way over that trackless waste, or as if this must be some great and un- precedented success, and in no way the expected or usual result of such enterprises. A sea-captain of twenty-five years' experience told me that this sensation never wore off, and that he still felt as fresh a sense of something ex- traordinary, at the sight of land, as upon his first voyage. To discover for one's self that there is really another side to the ocean, — that is the astonishing thing. And when it happens, as in our case, that the haven thus gained is not merely a part of a great continent which the stupidest 228 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. Bhip could not miss, if it only sailed far enough, but is actuallj a small volcanic island, a mere dot among those wild waves, a thing which one might easily have passed jn the night, unsuspecting, and which yet was not so passed, — it really seems like the maddest piece of good luck, as if one should go to sea in a bowl, hoping some- where or other to land on the edge of a teacup. As next day we stumbled on deck in the foggy dawn, the dim island five miles off seemed only dawning too, a shapeless thing, half formed out of chaos, as if the leagues of gray ocean hid grown weary of their eternal loneli- ness, and bungled into something like land at last. The phrase ^' making land " at once becape the simple and necessary expression ; we had come upon the very pro- cess itself. Nearer still, the cliffs five hundred feet in height, and the bare conical hills of the interior, divided everywhere by cane-hedges into a regular checker-work of cultivation, prolonged the mystery ; and the glimpses of white villages scarcely seemed to break the spell. Point afler point we passed, — great shoulders of volcanic mountain thrust out to meet the sea, with steep green ravines furrowed in between them ; and when at last we rounded the Espalamarca, and the white walls and the ^loorish towers of Horta stood revealed before us, and a stray sunbeam pierced the clouds on the great mountain Pico across the bay, and the Spanish steamship in the harbor fiung out her gorgeous ensign of gold «and blood, — then, indeed, we felt that all the glowing cup of the tropics was proffered to our lips, and the dream of our voyage stood fulfilled. Not one of our immediate party, most happily, had ever been beyond Boston Harbor before, and so we all plunged without fear or apology into the delicious sense FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 229 of foreignness ; we moved as those in dreams. No one could ever precisely remember what we said or what we did, only that we were somehow boated ashore till we landed with difficulty through high surf on a wave-worn quay, amid an enthusiastic throng of women in dark-blue hooded cloaks which we all took for priestly vestments, and of beggars in a combination of patches which no sane person could reasonably take for vestments of any sort, until one saw how scrupulously they were washed and how carefully put together. The one overwhelming fact of the first day abroad is the simple sensation that one is abroad : a truth that can never be made anything but commonplace in the telling, or anything but wonderful in the fulfilling. What Emer- son says of the landscape is true here : no particular foreign country is so remarkable as the necessity of be- ing remarkable under which every foreign country lies. Horace Walpole found nothing in Europe so astonishing 'as Calais; and we felt that at every moment the first edge of novelty was being taken off for life, and that, if we were to qontinue our journey round the world, we never could have that first day's sensations again. Yet because no one (^n spare time to describe it at the mo- ment, this first day has never yet been described; all books of travels begin on the second day ; the photographic machine is not ready till the expression has begun to fade out. Months had been spent in questioning our travelled friends, sheets of old correspondence had been disinterred, sketches studied, Bullar*s unsatisfactory book read, and now we were on the spot, and it seemed as if every line and letter must have been intended to describe some other place on the earth, and not this strange, picturesque, Portuguese, Semi-Moorish Fayal. 230 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. One general truth came over us instantly, and it was strange to think that no one had happened to speak of it before. The essence of the surprise was this. We had always been left to suppose that in a foreign country one would immediately begin to look about and observe the foreign things, — these novel details having of course that groundwork of ordinary human life, the same all the wo^ld over. To our amazement, we found that it was the ground- work that was foreign ; we were shifted off our feet ; not the details, but the basis itself was wholly new and be- wildering ; and, instead of noting down, like intelligent travellers, the objects which were new, we found ourselves stupidly staring about to find something which was old, — a square inch of surface anywhere which looked like anything ever seen before, — that we might take our de- parture from that, and then begin to improve our minds. Perhaps this is difficult for. the first hours in any foreign country ; certainly the untravelled American finds it utterly impossible in Fayal. Consider the incongruities. The beach beneath your feet, instead of being white or yellow, is black ; the cliffs beside you are white or red, instead of black or gray. The houses are of white plaster on the outside, with wood-work, oflen painted in gay stripes, within. There are no chimneys to the buildings, but sometimes there is a building to the chimney; the latter being a picturesque tower with smoke coming from the top and a house appended to the base. One half the jvomen go about bareheaded, save a handkerchief, and with a good deal of bareness at the other extremity, — while the other half wear vast conical hoods attached to voluminous cloth cloaks which sweep the ground. The men cover their heads with all sorts of burdens, and their feet with nothing, or else with raw-hide slippers, hair FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE, 231 outside. There is no roar or rumble ia the streets, for there are no vehicles and no horses, but an endless stream of little donkeys, clicking the rough pavement beneath their sharp hoofs, and thumped solidly by screaming drivers. Who wears the new- shoes on the island does not appear ; but the hens limp about the houses, tethered to the old ones. Further inspection reveals new marvels. The houses are roofed with red /and black tiles, semi-cylindrical in shape and rusty in surface, and making the whole town look as if incrusted with barnacles. There is never a pane of glass on the lower story, even for the shops, but only barred windows and solid doors. Every house has a paved courtyard for the ground-floor, into which don- keys may be driven and where beggars or peasants may wait, and. where ope naturally expects to find Gil Bias in one corner and Sancho Panza in another. An English . lady, on arriving, declared that our hotel was only a don- key-rstable, and refused to enter it. In the intervals be- tween the houses the streets are lined with solid stone walls from ten to twenty feet high, protecting the gardens •behind; and there is another stone wall enclosing the * town on the water side, as if to keep the people from being spilled out. One must go some miles into the country before getting beyond these walls, or seeing an inch on either side. This would be intolerable, of course, were the country a level ; but, as every rod of ground slopes up or down, it simply seems like walking through a series of roofless ropewalks or bowling-alleys, each being tilted up at an angle, so that one sees the landscape through the top, but never over the sidQ3. Thus, walk- ing or riding, one seldom sees the immediate foreground, but a changing background of soft valleys, an endless 232 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. patchwork of varied green rising to the mountains in the interior of the island, or sinking to the blue sea, beyond which the mountain Pico rears its graceful outline across the bay. From the street below comes up a constant hum of loud voices, often rising so high that one runs to see the fight commence, and by the time one has crossed the room it has all subsided and everybody is walking off in good- humor. Meanwhile the grave little donkeys are con- stantly pattering by, sometimes in pairs oi* in fours with a cask slung between; and mingled with these, in the middle of the street, there is an endless stream of pic- turesque figures, everybody bearing something on the head, — girls, with high water-jars, each with a green bough thrust in, to keep the water sweet, — boys, with baskets of fruit and vegetables, — men, with boxes, bales, bags, or trunks for the custom-house, or an enormous fagot of small sticks for firewood, or a long pola hung with wooden jars of milk, or with live chickens, head downward, or perhaps a basket of red and blue and golden fishes, fresh from the ocean and glistening in the sun. The strength of these Portuguese necks seei^s wonderful, as does also their power of balancing. On a rainy day I have seen a tall man walk gravely along the middle of the street through the whole length of the town, bearing a large empty cask balanced upon his head, over which he held an umbrella. Perhaps it is a procession-day, and all the saints of some church are taken out for ^n airing. They are figures composed of wood and wax, life-size, and in full costume, each having a complete separate wardrobe, but more tawdry and shabby, let us hope, than the originals ever indulged in. Here are Saint Francis and Saint FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 233 Isabella, Saint Peter with a monk kneeling before him, and Saint Margaret with her dog, and the sceptred and ermined Saint Louis, and then Joseph and Mary sitting amicably upon the same platform, with an additional force of bearers to sustain them. For this is the procession of the Bem-tasados or Well-married, in honor of the parents of Jesus. Then there are lofty crucifixes and waving flags ; apd when the great banner comes in sight, bearing simply the letters S. P. Q. R., one starts in wonder at that mighty superstition which has grasped the very cen- tral symbol of ancient empire, and brought it down, like a boulder on a glacier, into modern days. The letters which once meant ^Senatus Populusque Romanus stand now only for the feebler modern formula, Salve populum qjiem redemisti. All these shabby splendors are interspersed among the rank and file of several hundred lay brethren of different orders, ranging in years from six to sixty. The Carmelites wear a sort of white bathing-dress, and the Brotherhood of Saint Francis are clothed in long bfown robes, girded with coarse rope. The very old and the very young look rather picturesque in these disguises, the latter especially, urchins with almost^ baby faces, tod- dling along with lighted candle in hand ; and one often feels astonished to recognize some familiar porter or shopkeeper in this ecclesiastical dress, as when discover- ing a pacific next-door neighbor beneath the bear-skin of an American military officer. A fit suggestion ; for next follows a detachment of* Portuguese troops-of-the-line, — twenty shambling men in short jackets, with hair shaved close, looking most like children's wooden monkeys, by no means live enough for the real ones. They straggle along, scarcely less irregular id aspect than the main body 234 FAYAL AJ^t) THE PORTUGUESE. of the procession ; they march to the tap of the drom. I never saw a Fourth-of-Julj procession in the remotest of our rural districts which was not beautiful, compared to this forlorn display; but the popular liomage is duly given,' the bells jangle incessantly, and, as the procession passes, all men uncover their heads or have their hats knocked off by official authority. Still watching from our hotel window, turn now from the sham picturesqueness of the Church to the real and unconscious picturesqueness of every day. It is the orange season, and beneath us streams an endless throng of men, women, and children, each bearing on the head ft great graceful basket of yellow treasures. Opposite our window there is a wall by which they rest them- selves, after their three-mile walk from the gardens. There they lounge and there they chatter. Little boys come slyly to pilfer oranges, and are pelted away with other oranges; for a single orange has here no more appreciable value than a single apple in our farmers' orchards; and, indeed, the windfalls are left to decay in both cases. During this season one sees oranges everywhere, even displayed as a sort of thank-offering on the humble altars of country churches ; the -children's lips and cheeks assume a chronic yellowness; and the narrow sidewalks are strewn with bits of peel, punched through and through by the boys' pop-guns, as our boys punch slices of potato. All this procession files down, the whole day long, to the orange-yards by the quay. There one finds another merry group, or a series of groups, receiving and sorting the fragrant loads, papering, packing, boxing. In the gardens there seems no end to the varieties of the golden fruit, although only one or two are here being packed. FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 235 There are shaddocks, zamhoas, limes, sour lemons, sweet lemons, oranges proper, and Tqngerinhas ; these last being delicate, perfumed, thin-skinned miniature fruit from the land of the Moors. One may begin to eat oranges at Fayal in November ; but no discriminating person eats a whole one before March, — a few slices from the sunny side, and the rest is thrown upon the ground. One learns to reverse the ordinary principles of selection also, and choose the smaller and darker before the large and yellow : the very finest in appearance being -thrown, aside by the packers as worthless. Of these packers the Messrs. Dab- ney employ two hundred, and five hundred beside in the transportation. One knows at a glance whether the cargo is destined for America or England : the English boxes having the thin wooden top bent into a sort of dome, al- most doubling the solid contents of the box. This is to evade the duty, the custom-house measurement being taken only at ,the comers. It also enables the London dealers to remove some two hundred oranges from every box, and still send it into the country as full. When one thinks what a knowing race we came from, it is really wonderful where we Yankees picked up pur honesty. Let us take one more glance from the window ; for there is a mighty jingling and rattling, the children are all running to see something, and the carriage is approach- ing. " The carriage " : it i^ said advisedly ; for there is but one street on the island passable to such an equipage, and but one such equipage to enjoy its privileges, — only one, that is, drawn by horses, and presentable in Broad- way, There are three other vehicles, each the object of envy and admiration, but each drawn by oxen only. There is the Baroness, who sports a sort of butcher's cart, with a white top; within lies a mattress, and on 236 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. the mattress recline her ladyship and her daughter, as the cart rumbles and stumbles over the stones ; — nor they alone, for, on emerging from an evening party, I have seen the oxen of the Baroness, unharnessed, quietly munching their hay at the foot of the stairs, while a pair of bare feet emerging from one end of the vehicle, and a hearty snore from the other, showed the mattress to be found a convenience by some one beside the nobility. Secondly, there is a stout gentleman near the hotel, re- puted to possess eleven daughters, and- known to possess a pea-green omnibus mounted on an ox-cart ; the windows are all closed with blinds, and the number of young ladies may be an approximation only. And, lastly, there some- times rolls slowly by an expensive English Qurricle, lately imported; the springs are somehow deranged, so that it hangs entirely on one side ; three ladies ride within, and the proprietor sits on the box, surveying jn calm delight liis two red oxen with their sky-blue yoke, and the tall peasant who drives them with a goad. After a few days of gazing at objects like these, one is ready to .recur *to the maps, and become statistical. It would be needless to say (but that we all know far less of geography than we are supposed to know) that the Azores are about two thirds of the way across the At- lantic, and about the latitude of Philadelphia ; sharing, however, in the greater waripth of the European coast, and slightly affected, also, by the Gulf Stream. The isl- ands are supposed to have been known to the Phoenicians, and Humboldt holds out a flattering possibility of Phoeni- cian traces yet discoverable. This lent additional interest to a mysterious inscription which we hunted up in a church built in the time of Philip IL, at the north end of the island ; we had the satisfaction of sending a copy FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 237 of it to Humboldt, though it is after all supposed to be only a Latin inscription clothed in uncouth Greek characters, such as have long passed for Runic in the Belgian churches and elsewhere. The Phoenician traces remain to be dis- covered ; so does a statue fabled to exist on the shore of one of the smaller islands, where Columbus landed in some of his earlier voyages, and, pacing the beach, looked eagerly towards the western sea : the statue is supposed still to portray him. In the fifteenth century, at any rate, the islands were rediscovered. Since then they have • always been under Portuguese control, including in that phrase the period when Philip 11. united that crown with his own ; and they are ruled ftow by Portuguese military and civil governors, with the aid of local legislatures. Fayal stands, with Pico and San Jorge, rather isolated from the rest of the group, and out of their sight. It is the largest and most populous of the islands, except St. Michael and Terceira ; it has the best harbor and by far the greater share of American commerce, St. Michael tak- ing most of the English. Whalers put into Fayal for fresh vegetables and supplies, and to transship their oil ; while distressed vessels often seek the harbor to repair damages. The island is twenty-five miles long, and shaped like a turtle ; the cliffs along the sea range from five hundred to a thousand feet in height, and the mountainous interior rises to three thousand. The sea is far more restless than upon our coast, the surf habitually higher; and there is such a depth of water in many places around the shore, that, on one occasion, a whale- ship, drawn too near by the current, broke her main-yard against the cliff, without grazing her keel. The population numbers about twenty-five thousand, one half of these being found in the city of Horta, and 238 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. the rest scattered in some forty little hamlets lying at irregular distances along the shores. There are very few English or French residents, and no Americans but the different branches of the Consul's family, — a race whose reputation for all generous virtues has spread too widely to leave any impropriety in mentioning them here. Their energy and character have made themselves felt in every part of the inland ; and in the villages farthest from their charming home, one has simply to speak of a familhay " the family," and the introduction is sufficient. Almost every good institution or enterprise on the island is the creation* of Mr. Dabney. He transacts without charge the trade in vegetables b^ween the peasants and the whale-ships, guaranteeing the price to the producers, giv- ing them the profits, if any, and taking the risk himself; and the only provision for pauperism is found in his charities. Every Saturday, rain or shine, tBere flocks together from all parts of the island a singular collection of aged people, lame, halt, and blind, who receive, to the number of two hundred, a weekly donation of ten cents each, malting a thousand dollars annually. This con- stitutes but a small part of the benefactions of this re- markable man, the true father of the island, with twenty- five thousand grown children to take care of. Ten cents a week may not seem worth a whole day's journey on foot, but by the Fayal standard it is not un- profitable. The usual rate of wages for an able-bodied man is sixteen cents a day ; and an acquaintance of ours, who had just got a job on the roads at thirty cents a day, declined a good opportunity to emigrate to America, on the ground that it wus best to " let well alone." Yet the price of provisions is by no means very low, and the dif- ference is chiefly in abstinence. But fuel and clothing FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 239 cost little, since little is needed, — except that no woman thinks herself really respectable until she has her great blue cloak, which lequires an outlay of from fifteen to thirty dollars, though the whole remaining wardrobe miay not be worth half that. The poorer classes pay about a dollar a month in rent ; they eat fish several times a week and meat twice or thrice a year, living chiefly upon the coarsest corn-bread, with yams and beans. Still they contrive to have their luxuries. A soldier's wife, an elderly woman, said to«'me pathetically, "We have six vintems (twelve cents) a day, — my husband smokes and I take snufiT, — and how are we to buy shoes and stock- ings ? " But the most extreme case of economy which I discovered was that of a poor old woman, unable to tell her own age, who boarded with a poor family for four patacos (twenty cents) a month, or five cents a week. She had, she said, a little place in the chimney to sleep in, and wheq they had too large a fire, she went out of doors. Steeped in this utter poverty, — dwelling in low, dark, smoky huts, with earthen floors, — it is yet woi^erful to see how these people preserve not merely the decencies, but even the amenities of life. Their clothes are a chaos of patches, but one sees no rags ; all their well-worn white garments are white in the superlative degree ; and when their scanty sppply of water is at the scantiest, every bare foot on the island is sure to be washed in warm water at night Certainly there are fleas and there are filthi- nesses in some directions ; and yet it is amazing, espe- cially for one accustomed to the Irish, to see an extreme of poverty so much greater, with such an utter absence of squalidness. But when all this is said and done, the position of the people of Fayal is an abject one, that is, it 240 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESR - is a European position ; it teaches more of history in a day to an untravelled American than all his studies had told him besides, — and he returns home ready to acquiesce in a thousand dissatisfactions, in view of that most wondrous of all recorded social changes, the trans- formation of the European peasant into the American ^citizen. Fayal is not an expensive place. One pays six dollars a week at an excellent hotel, and there is nothing else to spend money on, except beggars and donkeys. For a shilling an hour one can go to ride, or, as the Portuguese phrase perhaps circuitously expresses it, go to walk on horseback on a donkey, — dar um passeio a cavaUio n*um burro. The beggars, indeed, are numerous; but <4ie*s expenditures are always happily limited by the great scarcity of small change. A half-cent, however, will buy you blessings enough for a lifetime, and you can find an investment in almost any direction. You visit some church or cemetery; you ask a question or two of a lounger in a black cloak, with an air like an exiled Stuart, and, as you part, he detains you, saying, " Sir, will you give me some little thing {alguma cousinha^, — I am so poor ? " Overwhelmed with a sense of personal humility, you pull out three half-cents and present them with a touch of your hat ; he receives them with the same, and you go home with a feeling that a distinguished honor has been done you. The Spaniards say that the Portu- guese are " mean even in their begging " : they certainly make their benefactors mean ; and I can remember to have returned home, after a donation of a whole pataco (five cents), with a debilitating sense of too profuse phi- lanthropy. It is inevitable that even the genteel life of Fayal i FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 241 should share this parsimony. As a general rule, the higher classes- on the island, socially speaking, live on astonishingly smalt means. How they do it is a mystery ; hut families of eight contrive to spend only three or four .hundred dollars a year, and yet keep several servants, and always appear rather stylishly dressed. The low rate of wages (two dollars a month at the very highest) makes household service a cheap luxury, I was told of a family employing two domestics upon an income of a hundred and twenty dollars. Persons come to beg,* sometimes, and bring a servant to carry home what is given. I never saw a mechanic carry his tools ; if it be only a hammer, the hired boy must come to fetch it. Fortunately, there is not much to transport, the me- chanic arts being in a very rudimentary condition. For instance, there are no saw-horses nor hand-saws, the smallest saw used being a miniature wood-saw, with the steel set at an angle, in a peculiar manner. It takes three men to saw a plank : one to hold the plank, another to saw, and a third to carry away the pieces. Farming- tools have the same simplicity. It is one odd result of the universal bare feet that they never will use spades, but everything is done with a hoe, most skilfully wielded. There are no wheelbarrows, but baskets are the universal substitutes. The plough is made entirely of wood, only pointed with iron, and is borne to and from the field on the shoulder. The carts are picturesque, but clumsy; they are made of wicker-work, and the iron-shod wheels are solidly attached to the axle, so that all revolves to- gether, amid fearful creaking. The people could not be induced to use a cart with movable wheels which was imported from America, nor will they even grease their axles, because the noise is held to drive away witches. 11 p 242 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. Some other arts are a little more advanced, as any visitor to Mr. Harper's pleasant Fayal shop in Boston may dis- cover. The islanders make homespun cloth upon a simple loom, and out of their smoky huts come beautiful em- broideries and stockings whose fineness is almost une- qualled. Their baskets are strong and graceful, and I have seen men sitting in village doorways, weaving the beautiful broom-plant, yellow flowers and all, until basket and bouquet seemed one. The greater part of the surface of the island is culti- vated like a kitchen-garden, even up to the top of volcanic cones eight hundred feet high, and accessible only by steps cut in the earth. All the land is divided into little rectangular patches of various verdure, — yellow-blos- somed broom, blue-flowering flax, and the contrasting green of lupines, beans, Indian com, and potatoes. There is not a spire of genuine grass on the island, except on the Consul's lawn, but wilds covered with red heather, loVr yoyo-bushes (whence the niime of the island), and a great variety of mosses. The cattle are fed on beans and lupines. Firewood is obtained from the opposite island of Pico, five miles off, and from the Caldeira or Crater, a pit five miles round and fifteen hundred feet deep, at the summit of Fayal, whence great £sigots are brought upon the heads of men and girls. It is an oversight in the " New American Cyclopaedia " to say of Fayal that " the cluef object of agriculture is the vine," because there are not a half-dozen vineyards on the island, the soil being unsuitable; but there are extensive vineyards on Pico, and these are owned almost wholly by proprietors resi- dent in Fayal. There is a succession of crops of vegetables throughout the year ; peas are green in January, whicb is, indeed, ; FAYAZ AND THE PORTUGUESE. 243 said to be the most verdant month of the twelve, the fields in summer becoming parched and yellow. The mercury usually ranges from 50** to 80°, winter and summer ; but we were there during an unusually cool season, and it went down to 45°. This was regarded as very severe by the thinly clad Fayalese, and I sometimes went into cot- tages and found the children lying in bed to keep warm. Yet roses, geraniums, and callas bloomed out of doors all the time, and great trees of red camellia, which they «ut as we cut roses. Superb scarlet banana-fiowers decked our Christmas-tree. Deciduous trees lose their leaves in winter there, however, and exotic plants retain the habits they brought with them, with one singular exception. The Moms mtdttcaiUts was imported, and the silk-manu- facture with it ; suddenly the trees seemed to grow be- wildered, they put forth earlier and earlier in the spring, until they got back to January ; the leaves at last fell so early that the worms died before spinning cocoons, and the whole enterprise was in a few years abandoned because of this vegetable insanity. In spite of the absence of snow and presence of verd- ure, this falling of the leaves gives some hint of winter ; yet blackbirds and canaries sing without ceasing. The latter are a variety possessing rather inferior charms, compared with the domestic species; but they have a pretty habit of flying away to Pico every night : it was pleasant to sit at sunset on the high clifis at the end of the island and watch the little brown creatures, like frag- ments of the rock itself, whirled away over the foaming ocean. The orange-orchards were rather a disappoint- ment; they suggested quince-trees with more shining leaves ; and, indeed, there was a hard, glossy, coriaceous look to the vegetation generally, which made us some- 244 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. times long for the soft, tender green of more temperate zones. The novel beauty of the Dabnej gardens can scarcely be exaggerated ; each step was a new incursion into the tropics, — a palm, a magnolia, a camphor-tree, a dragon-tree, suggesting Humboldt and Orotava, a clump of bamboos or cork-trees, or the startling strange- ness of the great grass- like banana, itself a jungle. There are hedges of pittosporum, arbors veiled by passion- flowers, and two specimens of that most beautiful of all living trees, the araucaria, or Norfolk Island pine, — one of these being some eighty feet high, and said to be the largest north of the equator. And when over all this luxuriant exotic beauty the soft clouds furled away and the sun showed us Pico, we had no more to ask, and the soft, beautiful blue cone became an altar for our gratitude, and the thin mist of hot volcanic air that flickered above it seemed the rising incense of the world. In the midst of all these charming surprises, we all found it hard to begin upon the study of the language, although the prospect of a six months' stay made it desira- ble. We were pleased to experience the odd, stupid sen- sation of having people talk loud to us as being foreign- ers, and of seeing even the little children so much more at their ease than we were. And every step beyond this was a new enjoyment. .We found the requisites for learning a language on its own soil to be a firm will, a quick ear, flexible lips, and a great deal of cool audacity. Plunge boldly in, expecting to make countless blundera; find out the shops where they speak English, and don't go there; make your first bargains at twenty-five percent disadvantage, and charge it as a lesson in the language ; expect to be laughed at, and laugh yourself, because you win. The daily labor is its own reward. If it is a pleas- FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 245 ure to look through a telescope in an observatory, graduallj increasing its powers until a dim nebula is re- solved into a whole galaxy of separate stars, how much more when fhe nebula is one of language, close around you, and the telescope is your own more educated ear ! We discovered, further, what no one had ever told us, ^that the ability to speak French, however poorly, is rather a drawback in learning any less universal language, be- cause the best company in any nation will usually have some knowledge of French, and this tempts one to remain on neutral ground and be lazy. But the besj; company in Fayal was so much less interesting than the peasantry, that some of us persevered in studying the vernacular. To be sure, one finds English spoken by. more of the peasants than of the small aristocracy of the island, so many of the former- have spent some years in American whale-ships, and come back to settle down with their savings in their native village. In visiting the smaller hamlets on the island, I usually found that the owners of the two or three most decent houses had learned to speak English in this way. But I was amused at the dismay of an American sea-captain who on a shooting excursion ventured on some free criticisms on the agriculture of a farm, and was soon answered in excellent English by the proprietor. " Look at the foolish fellow," quoth the captain, " car- rying his plough to the field on his shoulder ! " " Sir," said the Portuguese, coolly, " I have no other way to take it there." The American reserved his fire, thereafter, for bipeds with wings. These Americanized sailors form a sort of humbler aristocracy in Fayal, and are apt to pride themselves on 246 VAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. their superior knowledge of the world, though their sober habits have commonly saved them from the demoraliza- tion of a Bailor's life. But the untravelled Fayalese peasantry are a very gentle, affectionate, childlike people, pensive rather than gay, industrious, but not ingenious, with few amusements and those the simplest, incapable of great crimes or very heroic virtues, educated by their re- ligion up to the point of reverent obedience, but no higher. Among the young men and boys, one sees the true olive cheeks and magnificent black eyes of Southern races. The women of Fayal are not considered remark- able for beauty, but in the villages of Pico one'sees in the doorways of hovels complexions like rose-petals, and faces such as one attributes to Evangeline, soft, shy, and inno- cent. Yet the figure is the chief wonder, the figure of woman as she was meant to be, beautiful in superb vigor, — not diseased and tottering, as with us, but erect and strong and stately ; every muscle fresh and alive, from the crown of the steady head, to the sole of the emanci- pated foot, — and yet not heavy and clumsy, as one fan- cies barefooted women must be, but inheriting symmetry and grace from the Portuguese or Moorish blood. I have looked in vain through the crowded halls of Newport for one such figure as I have again .and again seen descend- ing those steep mountain-paths with a bundle of firewood on the head, or ascending them with a basket of farm- manure. No person who has never left America can ap- preciate the sensation of living among healthy women ; often as I had heard this, I was utterly unprepared for the realization ; I never lost the conscious enjoyment of it for a single day ; and when I reached home and walked across Boston Common on a June Sunday, I felt as if I were in a hospital for consumptives. FATAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 247 This condition of health cannot be attributed to aoy mere advantage of climate. The higher classes of Fajal are feeble and sickly ; their diet Is ba^, they take no ex- ercise, and suffer the consequences ; they have all the ills to which flesh is heir, including one specially Portuguese complaint, known by the odd name of dor do cotoveloj elbow-disease, which corresponds to that known to An- glo-Saxons, by an equally bold symbol, as the green-eyed monster. Jealousy. So the physical superiority of the peasantry seems to come solely from their mode of lifci — out-door labor, simple diet, and bare feet. Change these and their health goes ; domestic service in foreign families on the island always makes them ill, and often destroys their health and bloom forever ; and, strange to say, that which most nauseates and deranges their whole physical condition, in such cases, is the necessity of wear- ing shoes and stockings. The PJ(;o peasants have also the advantage of the Fayalese in picturesqucness of costume. The men wear homespun blue jackets and blue or white trousers, with a high woollen cap of red or blue. The women wear a white waist with a gay kerchief crossed above the bosom, a full short skirt of blue, red, or white, and a man's jacket of blue, with tight sleeves. On the head there is the pretty round-topped straw hat with red and white cord, which is now so extensively imported from Fayal ; and beneath this there is always another kerchief, tied under the chin, or hanging loosely. The costume is said to vary in every village, but in the villages opposite Horta this dress is worn by every woman from grandmother to smallest granddaughter; and when one sails across the harbor, in the lateen-sail packet-boat, and old and young come forth on the rocks to see the arrival, it seems like voyaging to ^ome realm of butterflies. 248 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. Xheir oat-door life begins very early. As soon as the Fajalese baby is old enough to sit up alone, he is sent into the nursery. The%ursery is the sunny side of the house door. A large stone is selected, in a convenient position, and there the little dusky creature squats, hour after hour, clad in one garment at most, and looking at the universe through two black beads of eyes. Often the little dog comes and suns himself dose by, and the little cat beside the dog, and the little pig beside the cat, and the little hen beside the pig, — a " Happy Family," a row of little traps to catch sunbeams, all down the lane. When older, the same child harnesses his horse and wagon, he being the horse and a sheep's jawbone the wagon, and trots contentedly along, in almost the smallest amount of costume accessible to mortals. All this refers to the genuine^ h^^ppy? ple- beian baby. The genteel baby is probably as wretched in Fayal as elsewhere, but he is kept more out of sight. These children are seldom noisy and never jude: the race is not hilarious, and their politeness is inborn. Not an urchin of three can be induced to accept a sugarplum until he has shyly slid off his little cap, if he has one, and kissed his plump little hand. The manners of princes can hardly surpass the natural courtesy of yonder peasant, as he insists on climbing the orange-tree to select for you the choicest fruit. A shopkeeper can never sell you a hand- ful of nuts without first bringing the bundle near to his lips with a graceful wave of salutation. A lady from Lisbon told us that this politeness surpassed that of the native Portuguese; and the wife of an English captain, who had sailed with her husband from port to port for fifteen years, said that she had never seen anything to equal it. It is not the slavishness of inferiors, for the poorest ex- hibit it towards each other. You see two very old wo- FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 249 taaen talking eagerly in the street, each in a cloak whoaa every square inch is a patch, and. every patch a different shade, — and each alternate word you* hear seems to be Senhora, Among laboring men, the most available me- dium of courtesy is the little paper cigar; it contains about four whiffs, and is smoked by about that numb«r of separate persons. But to fully appreciate this natural courtesy, one must visit the humbler Fayalese at home. You enter a low stone hut, thatched and windowless, and you find the mistress within, a robust, black-eyed, dark-skinned woman, engaged in grinding com with a Scriptural handmill. She bars your way with apologies ; you must not enter so poor a house ; you are so beautiful, so perfect, and she is so poor, she has " nothing but the day and the night," or some equally poetic phrase. But you enter and talk with her a little, and she readily shows you all her little possessions, — her chest on the earthen floor, her one chair and stool, her tallow candle stuck against the wall, her husk mattress rolled together, with the precious blue cloak inside of it. Behind a curtain of coarse straw- work is a sort of small boudoir, holding things more private, an old barrel with -the winter's fuel in it, a few ears of com hanging against the wall, a pair of shoes, and a shelf with a large paste- board box. The box she opens triumphantly and ex- hibits her santinhos, or little images of saints. This is San Antonio, and that is Nossa Senhora do Concei9ao, Our Lady of the Conception. She .prays to them every day for sunshine; but they do not seem to hear, this winter, she says, and it rains all the time. Then, ap- proaching the climax of her blessedness, with beaming £&ce she opens a door in the wall, and shows you her pig. The courtesy of the higher classes tends to formalism, 11* 260 FATAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. and has stamped itself on the language in some very odd wajs. The tendency common to all tongues, towards a disuse of the second person singular, as too blunt and familiar, is carried so far in Spanish and Portuguese as to disuse the second person plural also, except in the family citx;l% and to substitute the indirect phrases, vuestra Merced (in Spanish) and vossa Merce (in Portuguese), both much contracted in speaking and familiar writing, and both signifying " your Grace." The joke of invaria- bly applying this epithet to one's valet would seem sufficiently grotesque in either language, and here the Spanish stops ; but Portuguese propriety has gone so far that even this phrase has become too hackneyed to be civil. In talking with your equals, it would be held an insult to call them simply ^^your Grace"; it must be some phrase still more courtly, — vossa ExceUencia, or vossa Senhona, One may hear an elderly gentleman talking to a young girl of fourteen, or, better still, two such damsels talking together, and it is "your Excel- lency " at every sentence ; and the address on an envelope for a married lady is Ulustrtsstma ExceUentissima Sen- hora Dona. The lower classes have not quite reached the " Excellency," but have got beyond the " Grace," and hence the personal pronouns are in a state of colloquial chaos, and the only safe way is to hold to the third person and repeat the name of Manuel or Maria, or whatever it may be, as often as possible. This leads naturally to the mention of another peculiar usage. On visiting the Fayal post-office, I was amazed to .find the letters arranged alphabetically in the order of the baptismal, not the family .names, of the persons con- cerned, — as if we should enumerate Adam, Benjamin, Charles, and so on. But I at once discovered this to be FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 251 « the universal usage. Merchants, for instance^ thus file their business papers ; or rather, since four fifths of the male baptismal names in the language fall under the four letters, A, F, J, M, they arrange only five bundles, giv- ing one respectively to Antonio, Francisco, Jos^ or Joao, and Manuel, adding a fifth for sundries. This all seemed inexplicable, till at last there proved to be an historical kernel to the nut. The Portuguese, and to some extent the Spaniards, have kept nearer to the primitive usage which made the personal name the important one and the patronymic quite^ secondary. John Smith is not known conversationally as Mr. Smith, but as Mr. John, •^ Senhor Joao. You may have in society an acquaintance named Senhor Francisco, and another named Senhora Dona Christina, and it may be long before it turns out that they are brother and sister, the family name being, we will suppose, Garcia da Rosa ; and even then it will be doubtful whether to call them Garcia or da Bosa. This explains the great multiplication of names in Spain and Portugal The first name being the important one, the others may be added, subtracted, multiplied, or di- vided, with perfect freedom. A wife may or may not add her husband's name to her own; the eldest son takes some of the father's family names, the second son some of the mother's, saints' names are sprinkled in to sui( the taste, and no confusion is produced, because the first name is the only one in common use. Each may, if he pleases, carry all his ancestors on his visiting-card, without any inconvenience except the cost of paste- board. m Fayal exhibits another point of courtesy to be studied. The gentleman of our party was early warned that it was very well to learn his way about the streets, but far more 262 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. essential to know the way to the brim of bis hat Eveiy gentleman touches his hat to every lady, acquaintance or stranger, in street or balcony. So readily does one grow used to this, that I was astonished, for a moment, at the rudeness of some French officers, just landed from a frig- ate, who passed some ladies, friends of mine, without rais- ing the hat ^ Are these," I askedj '* the polite. French- men one reads about?" — not reflecting that I myself should not have ventured on bowing to strange ladies in the same position, without special instruction in Portu- guese courtesies. These little refinements became, in- deed, very agreeable, only alloyed by the spirit of caste in which they were performed, •^ elbowing the peasant- woman off the sidewalk for the sake of doffing the hat to the Baroness. I thought of the impartial courtesies showp towards woman as woman in my own country, and the spread ea^le within me flapped his pinions. Then I asked myself, " What if the woman were black ? " and the eagle immediately closed his wings, and flapped no more. But I may add, that afterwards, attending dances among the peasants, I was surprised to see my graceful swains ia bumble life smoking and spitting in the presence of white- robed belles, in a manner not to be witnessed on our far- thest western borders. . The position of woman iff Portuguese countries brings one nearer to that Oriental type from which modern soci- ety has been gradually diverging. Woman is secluded, so far as each household can afford it, and this is the key to the Oriental system. Seclusion is aristocracy, and if it cannot be made complete, the family must do the best they can. Thus, in the lowest classes, one daughter is often decreed by the parents to be brought up like a lady, and for this every sacrifice is to be made. Her robust FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 263 sisters go barefooted to the wells for water, they go miles unprotected into the lonely moantains ; no social ambition, no genteel helplessness for them. But Mariquinha is taught to read, write, and sew ; she is as carefully looked after as if the world wished to steal her ; she wears shoes and stockings and an embroidered kerchief and a hooded cloak ; and she nevet steps outside the door alone. You meet her, pale and demure, plodding along to mass with her mother. The sisters will marry laborers and fisher- men ; Mariquinha will marry a small shop-keeper or the mate of a vessel,' or else die single. It is not very pleasant for the poor girl in the mean time ; she is neither healthy nor happy ; but " let us be genteel or die." On festa days she and her mother draw their hoods so low and their muffling handkerchiefs so high that the cos- tume is as good as a ycuhmaky and in passing through the streets these one-eyed women seem like an importation from the " Arabian Nights." Ladies of higher rank, also, wear the hooded cloak for disguise and greater freedom, and at a fashionable wedding in the cathedral I have seen the jewelled fingers of the uninvited acquaintances gleam from the blue folds of humble bl*oadcloth. But very rarely does one see the aristocratic lady in the street in her own French apparel, and never alone. There must be a male relative, or a servant, or, at 4he very least, a female com- panion. Even the ladies of the American Consul's family very rarely go out singly, — not from any fear, .for the people are as harmless as birds, but from efiquette. The first foreign lady who walked habitually alone in the streets was at once christened " The Crazy American." A lady must not be escorted home from an evening party by a gentleman, but by a servant with a lantern ; and as the streets have no lamps, I never could see the breaking 254 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. up of any such entertainment without recalling Retzsch's quaint pictures of the little German towns, and the burgh- ers plodding home with their lanterns, — unless, per- chance, what a Grerman friend of ours called innocentlj a ^ sit-down chair '* came rattling by, and transferred our associations to Cranford and Mr. Winkle* We found or fancied other Orientalisms. A visitor claps his hands at the head of the courtyard stairs, to summon an attendant The solid chimneys, with win- dows in them, are precisely those described by Urquhart in his delightful " Pillars of Hercules " ; so are the gar- dens, divided into clean separate cells by tall hedges of cane ; so is the game of ball played by the boys in the street, under the self-same Moorish name of arri ; so is the mode of making butter, by tying up the cream in a goat-skin and kicking it till the butter comes. Even the architecture fused into one all our notions of Gothic and of Moorish, and gave great plausibility to Urquhart's in- genious argument for the latter as the true original. And it is a singular fact that the Mohammedan phrase Oxcdd^ ^' Would to Allah," is still the most familiar ejaculation in the Portuguese language, and the habitual phrase by which religious aspiration is expressed in books. We were treated with great courtesy and hospitality by our Portuguese neighbors, and an evening party in Fayal is in some respects worth describing. As one enters, the anteroom is crowded with gentlemen, and the chief re- ception-room seems like a large omnibus, lighted, dressed with flowers, and having a row of ladies on each side. The personal beauty is perhaps less than one expects, though one sees some superb dark eyes and blue-black hair, and the dresses are borrowed from rather distant French fash- ions. Presently a lady takes her seat at the piano, then; FATAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 255 comes an eager rush of gentlemen into the room, and partners are taken for cotillons, — large, double, very double cotillons, here called contradangas. The gentle- men appear in scrupulous black broadcloth and satin and white kid ; in summer alone are they permitted to wear white trousers to parties ; and we heard of one anxious youth who, about the turn of the season, wore the black and carried the white in his pocket, peeping through the door, on arrival, to see which had the majority. It seemed a pity to waste such gifts of discretion on a monarchical country, when he might have emigrated to America and applied them to politics! The company perform their dancing with the accus- tomed air of civilized solemnity. Changes of figure are announced by a clapping of hands from one of the* gentle- men, and a chorus of such applauses marks the end of the dance. Then they promenade slowly round the room, once or twice, in pairs ; then the ladies take their seats, and instantly each gentleman walks hurriedly into the anteroom, and for ten minutes there is as absolute a sep- aration of the^ sexes as in a Friends' Meeting. Nobody approves this arrangement, in the abstract ; it is all very well, they think, for foreign gentlemen to remain in the room, but it is not the Portuguese custom. Yet, with this exception, the manners are agreeably simple. Your admission to the house guarantees you as a proper acquaint- ance, there are no introductions, and you may address any one in any language you can coin into a sentence. Many speak French, and two or three English^ —some- times with an odd mingling of dialects, as when the Mili- tary Governor answered my inquiry, made in timid Portuguese, as to how long he had served in the army. ^ Vinte^inco anno$^' he answered, in the same language ; 256 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. then, with an effort after an unexceptionable translation^ ** Vat you call, Twenty-cinq year " 1 The great obstacle to the dialogue soon becomes, how- ever, a deficit of subjects rather than of words. Most of these ladies never go out except to mass and to parties, they never read, and if one of them has some knowledge of geography, it is quite an extended education ; so that, when you have asked them if they have ever been to SL I^Iichael, and they have answered, Yes, — ^ or to Lisbon, and they have answered, Ko, — then social intercourse rather flags. I gladly record^ however, that there were some remarkable exceptions to {his, and that we found in the family of the late eminent Portuguese statesman, Mousinho d' Albuquerque, accomplishments and knowl- edge which made their acquaintance an honor. Duringnhe intervals of the dancing, little trays of tea and of cakes are repeatedly carried round, -^ astonishing cakes, in every gradation of insipidity, with the oddest names: white poison, nuns' kisses, angels' crops, cats' tails, heavenly bacon, royal eggs, coruscations, cocked hats, and esquecidos, or oblivion cakes, the butter being omitted. It seems an unexpected symbol of the plain- tive melancholy of the Portuguese character that the small confections which we call kisses they call sighs, suspires. As night advances, the cakes grow sweeter and the dances livelier, and the pretty national dances are at last introduced; though these are never seen to such ad- vantage as when the peasants perfbrm them on a Satur- day or Sunday evening to the monotonous strain of a viola, the musician himself taking part in the complicated dance, and all the men chanting the refrain. Neverthe- less they add to the gayety of our genteel entertainment, and you may stay at the party as long as you have FAYAL AND THE PORTUQUESE. 257 patience, — if till four in the morning, so much the better for your popularity ; for, though the gathering may consist of but thirty people, they like to make the most of it. ^ Perhaps the next day one of these new friends kindly sends in a present for the ladies of the party : a bouquet of natural flowers with the petals carefully gilded ; a/o/ar, or Easter cake, being a large loaf of sweetened bread, baked in a ring, and having whole eggs, shell and all, in the midst of it. One lady of our acquaintance received a pretty basket, which being opened revealed two little Portuguese pigs, about eight inches long, snow-white, scented with cologne, and wearing blue ribbons round their necks. Beyond these occasional parties, there seems very little society during the winter, the native ladies seldom either walking or riding, and there being no places of secular amusement. In summer, it is said, when the principal families resort to their vineyards at Pico, formalities are laid aside, and a simpler intercourse takes place. But I never saw any existence more thoroughly pitiable than that of the young men of the higher classes ; they had literally nothing to do, except to dress themselves elegantly and lounge all day in an apothecary's shop. A very few went out shooting or fishing occasionally; but anything like employment, even mercantile, was entirely beneath their caste ; and they only pardoned the constant industry • of the American Consul and his family, as a sort of na- tional eccentricity, for which they must not be severely condemned. A good school system is being introduced into all the Portuguese dominions, but there is* no bookstore in Fayal, though some dry-goods dealers sell a few religious books. We heard a rumor of a Portuguese "Uncle Q 258 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. Tom " also, but I never could find the copy. The old Convent Libraries were sent to Lisbon, otx the suppres- sion of the monasteries, and never returned. There was once a printing-press on the island, but one of the Gov- ernors shipped it off to St. Michael. ^' There it goes," he said to the American Consul, " and the Devil take it ! " The vessel was wrecked in the bay. "You see," he afterwards piously added, " the Devil has taken it." It is proper, however, to mention, that a press and a news- paper have been established since our visit, without fur- ther Satanic interference. » Books proved to be scarce on the island. One offidal gentleman from Lisbon, quite an accomplished man, who spbke French fluently and English tolerably, had some five hundred books, chiefly in the former tongue, includ- ing seventy-two volu9ie8 of Balzac. His daughter, a young lady of fifteen, more accomplished than most of the belles of the island, showed me her little library of books in French and Portuguese, including three English vol- umes, an odd selection, — "The Vicar of Wakefield,'** Gregory's "Legacy to his Daughters," and Fielding's " Life of Jonathan Wild." But, indeed, her supply of mqdem Portuguese literature was almost as scanty (there is so very little of it), and we heard of a gentle- man's studying French " in order to have something to read," which seemed the last stage in national decay. Perhaps we were still more startled by the unexpected literary criticisms of a young lady from St. Michael, English on the father's side, but still Roman Catholic, who had just read the New Testament, and thus naively gave it her indorsement in a letter to an American friend: " I dare say you have read the New Testament ; but if you have not, I recommend it to you. I have just fin- FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 259 ished reading it, and find it a very moral and nice book." After this certificate, it will be safe for the Bible Society to continue its operations. Nearly all the popular amusements in Fayal occur in connection with religion. After the simpler buildings and rites of the Romish Church in America, the Fayal churches impress one as vast baby-houses, and the ser- vices, as acted charades. This perfect intermingling of the religious and the melodramatic was one of our most inter- esting experiences, and made the Miracle Plays of history a very simple and intelligible thing. In Fayal, holiday and holy-day have not yet undergone the slightest sep- aration. A festival has to the people necessarily some religious association, and when the Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, Mr, Dabney*s servants like to dress with fiowers a wooden image in his garden, the fierce figure-head of some wrecked vessel, which they boldly personify as the American Saint. On the other hand, the properties of the Church are as freely used for merrymaking. On public days there are fireworks pro- vided by the priests ; they are kept in the church till the time comes, and then touched off in front of the building, with very limited success, by the sacristan. And, stran- gest of all, at the final puff and bang of each remarkable piece of pyrotechny, the bells ring out just the same sudden ckng which marks the agonizing moment of the Elevation of the Host. On the same principle, the theatricals which occasion- ally enliven the island take place in chapels adjoining the churches. I shall never forget the example I saw, on one of these dramatic occasions, of that one cardinal vir- tue of Patience, which is to the Portuguese race the sub- stitute for all more positive manly qualities. The per- 260 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. formance was to be by amateurs, and a written pro- gramme had been sent from house to house during the day ; and this had announced the curtain as sure to rise at eight. But as most of the spectators went at six to secure places, — literally, places, for each carried his or her own chair, — one might suppose the audience a little impatient before the appointed hour arrived. Yet one would then suppose very incorrectly. Eight o'clock came, and a quarter past eight, but no curtain rose. Half past eight No movement nor sign of any. The people sat still. A quarter to nine. The people sat still. Nine o'clock. The people sat perfectly still, nobody talking much, the gentlemen being all the while separated from the ladies, and all quiet At last, at a quarter past nine, the orchestra came in ! They sat down, laid aside their instruments, and looked about them. Suddenly a whistle was heard behind the scenes. Nothing came of it, how- ever. After a time, another whistle. The people sat still. Then the orchestra began to tune their instruments, and at half past nine the overture began. And during qII that inexplicable delay of one hour and a half, after a preliminary waiting of two hours, there was not a single look of annoyance or impatience, nor the slightest indica- tion, on any face, that this was viewed as a strange or ex- traordinary thing. We duly attended, not on this occasion only, but on all ecclesiastical festivals, grave or gay, — the only difnculty being to discover any person in town who had even ap- proximate information as to when or where they were to occur. We saw many sights that are universal in Homan Catholic countries, and many that are peculiar to Fayal : we saw the " Procession of the Empress," when, for six successive Saturday evenings, young girls walked in order FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 261 through the streets white-robed and crowned; saw the vesseb in harbor decorated with dangling effigies of Judas, on the appointed day ; saw the bands of men at Easter going about with Hags and plates to beg money for the churches, and returning at night with feet suspiciously unsteady; saw the feet- washing, on Maundy-Thursday, of twelve old men, each having a square inch of the in- step washed, wiped, and cautiously kissed by the Vicar- General, after which twelve lemons were solemnly dis- tributed, each with a silveir coin stuck into the peel ; saw and felt the showers of water, beans, Hour, oranges, eggs, from the balcony-windows during Carnival; saw wed- dings in churches, with groups of male companions hold- ing tall candles round kneeling brides ; saw the distribu- tion to the poor of bread and meat and wine from long tables arranged down the principal street, 6n Whitsunday, — a memorial vow, made long since, to deprecate the re- currence of an earthquake. But it must be owned that these things, so unspeakably interesting at first, became a little threadbare before the end of the winter ; we grew tired of the tawdriness and shabbiness which pervaded them /all, of the coarse faces of the priests, and the rank odor of the incense. We had left Protestantism in a state of vehement in- tolerance in America, but we soon foCind, that, to hear the hardest things said against the priesthood, one nrast visit a Roman Catholic country. There was no end to the anecdotes of avarice and sensuality which were told to us, and there seemed everywhere the strangest combination of official reverence with personal contempt. The princi- pal official, or Ouvidor^ was known among his parishioners by the endearing appellation of "The Black Pig," to which epithet his appearance certainly did no discredit. 262 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. There was a great shipwreck at Pico duriog our stay, and we heard of two hundred thousand dollars' worth of rich goods stranded on the bare rocks ; there were no adequate means for its defence, and the peasants could hardly be expected to keep their hands off. But the foremost hands were those of the parish priest ; for three weeks no mass was said in his church, and a funeral was left for days unperformed, that the representative of God might steal more silks and laces. When the next service occurred, the people remained *quiet until the priest rose for the sermon; then they rose also tumultuously, and ran out of the church, crying, ^Ladrao!^ "Thief!" " But why this indignation ? " said an intelligent Roman Catholic to us ; " there is not a priest on either island who would not have done the same." A few days after I saw this same cool critic, candle in hand, heading a solemn ecclesiastical procession in the cathedral. In the country villages there naturally lingers more undisturbed the simple, picturesque life of Roman Catho- lic society. Every hamlet is clustered round its church, almost always magnificently situated, and each has its special festivals. Never shall I forget one lovely day when we went to witness the annual services, at Praya, held to commemorate an ancient escape from an earth- quake. It was the first day of February. After weeks of rain, there came at one burst all the luxury of June; winter seemed to pass into summer in a moment, and blackbirds sang on every spray. We walked and rode over a steep promontory, down into a green valley, scooped softly to the sea : the church was by the beach. As we passed along, the steep paths /converging from all the hills were full of women and men in spotless blue and white, with bright kerchiefs ; they were all walking FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 263 barefooted over the rocky ways, only the women stop ping, ere reaching the church, to don stockings and shoes. Many persons sat in sunny places by the roadside to beg, with few to beg from, — blind old men, and groups of children clamorous for coppers, but propitiated by sugar-plums. Many others were bringing offerings, — candles for the altar, — poultry, which were piled, a liv- ing mass, legs tied, in the comer of the church, — and small sums of money, which were recorded by an old man in a mighty bopk. The church was already so crowded that it was almost impossible to enter ; the cen- tre was one great flower-garden made of the gay head- dresses of kneeling women, and in the aisles were peni- tents, toiling round the church upon their knees, each bearing a lighted candle. But the services had not yet begun, so we went down among the rocks to eat our luncheon of bread and oranges ; the ocean rolled in lan- guidly, a summer sea; we sat beside sheltered, trans- parent basins, among high and pointed rocks ; and great, indolent waves sometimes reared their heads, looking in upon our retreat, or flooding the calm pools with a sur- face of creamy effervescence. Every square inch of the universe seemed crowded with particles of summer. On our way past the church, we had caught a glimpse of unwonted black small-clothes, and slyly peeping into a little chape}) had seen the august Senate of Horta apparently arraying itself for the ceremony. Pres- ently out came a man with a great Portuguese flag, and then the Senators, two and two, with short black cloaks, white bands, and gold-tipped staves, trod statelily towards the church. And as we approached the door, on our return, we saw these dignitaries sitting in their great arm-chairs, as one might fancy Venetian potentates, while 264 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. a sonorous Portngnese sermon rolled over their heads as innocuouslj as a Thanksgiving discourse over any New England congregation. Do not imagine, by the way, that critical remarks on sermons are a monopoly of Protestantism. After one religious service in Fayal, my friend, the Professor of Languages, who sometimes gave lessons in English, re- marked to me confidentially, in my own tongue, ^' His sermon is good, but his exposition is bad ; he does not expose well." Supposing him to refer to the elocution, I assented, — secretly thinking, however, that the divine in question had exposed himself exceedingly well. Another very impressive ceremony was the Midnight Mass on Nqjy Year's eve, when we climbed at midnight, through some close, dark passages in the vast church edifice, into a sort of concealed opera-box above the high altar, and suddenly opened windows that looked down into the brilliantly lighted cathedral, crammed with kneeling people, and throbbing with loud music. It seemed cen- turies away from all modern life, — a glimpse into some buried Pompeii of the Middle Ages. More impressive still was Holy Week, when there were some rites unknown to other, Roman Catholic coun- tries. For three days the great cathedral was closely veiled from without and darkened within, — every door closed, every window obscured. Before this there had been seventy candles lighting up the high altar and the eager faces : now these were all extinguished, and through the dark church came chanting a procession bearing fee- ble candles and making a strange clapping sound, with matracas, like watchmen's rattles ; men carried the sym- bolical bier of Jesus in the midst, to its symbolical rest beneath the altar, where the three candles, representing FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 265 tbe three Marys, blazed above it During the time of darkness there were frequent masses and sermons, while terrible transparencies of the Crucifixion were suddenly unrolled from the lofty pulpit, and the throng below wept in sympathy, and clapped their cheeks in token of anguish, like the flutter of many doves. Then came the Hallelujah Saturday, when at noon the mourning ended. It was a breathless moment. The priests kneeled in gorgeous robes, chanting monotonously, with their foreheads upon the altar-steps; and. the hushed multitude hung jstpon their lips, in concentrated ecstasy, waiting for the coming joy. Suddenly burst the words, Gloria in ExceUi9* la an instant every >door was flung open, every curtain with- drawn, the great church was bathed in meridian sun- light, the organ crashed out triumphant, the bells pealed, flowers were thrown from the galleries in profusion, friends embraced and kissed each other, laughed, talked, and cried, and all the sea of g!iy head-dresses below was trem- ulous beneath a mist of unaccustomed splendor. And yet (this thought smote me) all the beautiful transforma- tion has come by simply letting in the common light of day. Then why not keep it always? Clear away, Humanity, these darkened windows, but clear away also these darkening walls, and show us that the simplest re- ligion is the best ! I cannot dwell upon the narrative of our many walks : — to the Espalamarca, with its lonely telegraph-station ; — to the Burnt Mountain, with its colored cliffs; — to visit the few aged nuns who still linger in what was once a convent ; — to Porto Pirn, with its curving Italian beach, its playing boys and picturesque fishermen be- neath the arched gateway ; — to the tufa-ledges near by, where the soil rocks are honeycombed with the cells 12 - 266 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. hollowed byecbini below the water's* edge, a faxst then undescribed and almost unexampled, said Agassiz on our return; — to the lofty, lonely Monte da Quia, with its solitary chapel on the peak, and its extinct crater, where the sea rolls in and out; — to the Dabney orange-gardens, on Sunday afternoons ; — - to the beautiful Mirante ravine, whenever a sudden rain filled the cascades and set the watermills and the washerwomen all astir, and the long brook ran down in whirls of white foam to the waiting s^a ; — tor to the western shores of tjie island, where we felt like Ariadnes, as we watched departing and home- bound vessels from those cliffs whose wave-worn fiords and innumerable searbirds make a Norway of Fayal. And I must also pass over still greater things : — the winter storms and shipwrecks, whose annals were they not written to the "New York Tribune"? — and the spring Sunday at superb Gastello Branco, with the whole rural population thronging to tfieet in enthusiastic affec- tion the unwonted presence of the Consul himself, the feudalism of love ; — and the ascent of the wild Caldeira, we climbing height after height, leaving the valleys below mottled with blue-robed women spreading their white garments to dry .in the sun, and the great Pico peeping above the clouds across the bay, Snd seeming as if directly above our heads, and nodding to us ere it drew back again ; — and, best of all, that wonderful ascent, by two of us, of Pico itself, seven thousand feet from the level of the sea, our starting-point. We camped half-way up, and watched the sunset over the lower peaks of Fayal ; we kindled fires of ^ayo-bushes on the lonely mountain- sides, a beacon for the world ; we slept in the loft of a little cattle«shed, with the calves below us, "the cows' sons," as our Portuguese attendant courteously called FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. 267 them; we waked next morning above the clouds, with one vast floor of white level vapor beneath us, such as Thoreau alone has described, with here and there an open glimpse of the sea far below, yet lifted up to an ap- parent level with the clouds, so as to seem like an Arctic scene, with patches jof open water. Then we climbed through endless sheep-pastures and over great slabs of lava, growing steeper and steeper ; we entered the crater at last, walled with snows of which portions might be of untold ages, for it is never, I believe, wholly empty ; we climbed, in such a gale of wind that the guides would not follow us, the steeple-like central pinnacle, two hundred feet high ; and there we reached, never to be forgotten, a small central crater at the very summit, where steam poured up between the . stones, — and, O, from what wondrous central depths that steam came to us ! There has been no eruption from any portion of Pico for many years, but it is a volcano still, and we knew that we were standing on the narrow and giddy summit of a chimney of the globe. That was a sensation indeed'!. We saw many another wild volcanic cliff and fissure and cave on our two days' tour round the island ; but it was most startling, when, on the first morning of that trip, as we passed through one of many soft green valleys, suddenly all verdure and all life vanished, and we found oi^rselves riding through a belt of white, coarse moss stretching from mountain to sea, covering rock and wall and shed like snow or moonlight or mountain-laurel or any other pale and glimmering thing ; and when, after miles of ignorant wonder, we rode out of it into greenness again and were told that we had crossed what the Por- tuguese call a Misterioy or Mystery, — the track of the last eruption. The white moss was the first garment of vegetation, just clothing those lava rocks once moire. 268 FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE. Bat the time was coming when we most bid good-by to picturesque Fayal. We had been there from Novem- ber to May ; it had been a winter of incessant rains, and the first essential of life had been a change of umbrellas; it had been colder than usual, making it a comfort to look at our stove, though we had never lighted it ; but our in- valids had gained by even this degree of mildness, by the wholesome salt dampness, by the comforts of our hotel with its good Portuguese landlord and English landlady, and by the constant kindness shown us by all. At last we had begun to feel that we had squeezed the orange of the Azores a little dry, and we were ready to go. And when, after three weeks of rough sailing, we saw Gape . Ann again, although it looked somewhat flat and prosaic after the headlands of Fayal, yet we knew that behind those low shores lay all that our hearts held dearest, and all the noblest hopes of the family of man. THE GREEK GODDESSES. a^^&^ t»*»,o«N V ,;^ /; /. !• '"■. ■ 4 / X>" i THE GREEK GODDESSES. " That heroic virtue For which antiquity hath left no names But i>attems only, such 48 Hercules, Achilles, Theseus.'* Oabiw. THE Greek goddesses, like all other mythologic fig- ures, have^been very fully discussed, in all their , less interesting aspects. Their genealogies have been ransacked, as if they had lived in Boston or Philadelphia. Their /symbolic relations to the elements and to the zodiac and to all the physical phenomena have been explored, as if there were to be an almanac made by their means. You will find in Max Miiller the latest versions of the ethical, the allegorical, and the historic interpretations. But all these unhappily omit the one element that gives .to those fabled beings their human interest, inasmuch as the personality is left out. It may be that the mythologists think the view beneath them; but it is hard to find in any language an essay* which lays all these abstruser things aside, and treats the deities in their simplest as- pect, as so many Ideals of Womanhood. But we must charitably remember that the Greek god- desses are rather new acquaintances, in their own proper personalities. Till within thirty years their very names had been merged for us in the Latin substitutes, as ef- fectually as if each had married into a Roman family. 272 THE GREEK GODDESSES. It 18 onlj since the publication of Tbirlwairs Greece, in 1885, that tbej have generallj appeared in English books under their own proper titles. With the Latin names came a host of later traditions, mostly foreign to the Greek mind, generally tending toward the trivial and the prosaic. Shakespeare in French does not more instantly cease to be Shakespeare, than the great ideals vacate their shrines when Latinized. Jeanne d'Arc, in the hands of Voltaire^ suffers hardly more de&mation of character than the Greek goddesses under the treatment of Lempriere. Now that this defilement is being cleared away, we begin to see how much of the stateliness of polytheism lay in its ideal women. Monotheism is inevitahle ; there never was a polytheism in the world, hut so soon as it produced a thinker it became a monotheism afler alL Then it instantly became necessary to say He or She in speaking of the Highest ; and the immediate result was a masculine Deily, and the dethronement of woman. What- ever the advantage gained, this imperfection of language brought serious evils, since it is in otirconceptiona of Deity that we represent what humanity should he. Look at the comparison from the point of view of woman. Suppose we were to hear of two races, in one of which all the recognized gods .were men, and all womanhood was rigidly excluded from the divine im|)er« sonation, and assigned to mortal and humble existence ; while in the other, every type of God had an answering goddess, every heavenly throne held two, every grace or glory was as sublimely incarnated in the one as in the other. Whatever else we should say of the comparison, we should say that the ideal woman was best recog- nized by the nation which still kept her on her throne. But among these woman-worshiifping nations the Greeks THE GREEK GODDESSES. 273 stood pre-eminent^ as distinct from the monotheistic na- tions of the world. So obvious is the difference, it has been thought that Solomon and the kings of Israel^ in associating the worship of Astarte with that of Jehovah, had a confused desire to correct this exclusive character! The Virgin Mother of the Roman Catholic Church is a more obvious ^reaming of the same instinct. For one, I can truly testify that my first sublime visions of an ideal womanhood came directly from the Greek tradition, as embodied in the few casts of antique sculp* ture in the Boston AthensBum. They seemed to repro- duce for me the birth of Athena ; they struck upon the brain as with a blow, and a goddess sprang forth. Life will always be the nobler for those early impressions. There were the gods too in their grandeur ; the Zeus had his more than lionlike majesty, but it was especially the Hera and Athena that suggested grander spheres. It was as if I had ascended Mount Olympus and said, ^'This theh is a man ; that is a woman I " Afterwards I lived for some years in the house which held Retzsch's copy of the Sistine Madonna, said to be the best copy in existence ; I drank it in as a boy receives 'the glory of the first great picture he has seen. Is there in the universe anything sublimer than that child's face ? But the mother's calm beauty still seems humble and secular beside those. Greek divinities. Art makes in them the grander, though not the tenderer revelation. It is for this grandeur, as I maintain, -^ this, which can never be human natur&'s daily food, — that we need to turn to art. That child is unhappy whose mother's face, as it bends above him, wears not a living tenderness which Raphael could merely reproduce. But the re- sources of divine exaltatiod which form the just heritage 12*. R 274 THE GREEK GODDESSES. of that mother's soul, the child knows not till he sees them embodied in Greek sculpture. Other races have made woman beautiful ; it was the peculiar glory of the Greeks that they made her sublime. As Emerson says that this wondrous nation anticipated by their language what the orator would say, so their sculp- ture anticipated what the priest would dream. Quintilian says of Pliidias's lost statue of Athena that ^ its beauty seems to have added reverence even to religion itself, so nigh does the majesty of the work approach to that' of the divinity." I speak now of the ideal alone. Undoubtedly in an- cient Greece, as in modern America, the actual woman was disfranchised, humiliated, enslaved. But nations, like men, have a right to appeal from their degradation to their dreams. It is something if they are sublime in these. Tried by such a standard, the Greeks placed woman at the highest point she has ever reached, and if we wish for a gallery of feminine ideals we must turn to them. But we must not seek these high visions among the indecencies of Ovid, nor among the pearl-strewn vul- garities of Aristophanes, any more than we seek the fem- inine ideal of to-day in the more chastened satire of the ^ Saturday Review." We must seek them in the remains of Greek sculpture, in Hesiod and Homer, in the Greek tragedians, in the hymns of Orpheus, Callimachus, and Proclus, and in the Anthology. We are apt to regard the Greek myths as only a chaos of confused fancies. Yet it often takes very little pains to disentangle them, at least sufficiently to seize their main thread. If we confine ourselves to the six primary goddesses, it needs little straining of the imagination to see what they represented to the Greek mmd. In their THE GREEK GODDESSES, 275 simplest aspect, tbey are but so many types of ideal wo- manhood, taken at successive epochs. Woman's whole earthly career may be considered as depicted, when we portray the girl, the maiden, the lover, the wife, the mother, and the housekeeper or queen of home. These, accordingly, are represented — to give both the Greek and the more familiar but more deceptive Latin names — by Artemis or Diana, Athena or Minerva, Aphrodite or Venus, Hera or Juno, Demeter or Ceres, and Hestia or Vesta. First comes the epoch of free girlhood, symbolized by Artemis, the Koman Diana. Her very name signifies health and vigor. She represents early youth, and all young things find in her their protector. She goes among the habitations of men only that she may take new- born infants in her arms ; and the young of all wild creatures must be spared in her honor, religion taking the place of game-laws. Thus she becomes the goddess of hunters, and learns of her brother Phoebus to be a hunt- ress herself. To her out-door things are consecrated, — dogs, deer, fishes, fountains, fir-trees, and the laurel. She is free, vigorous, restless, cold, impetuous, unsympa- thetic, beautiful. Her range of attributes is not great nor varied, but her type of character is perfectly marked, and we all know it; She stands for the nymph-like period of existence. She is still among us in the person of every girl of fourteen who wears a short dress, and is fond of pets, and delights in roaming the woods with her brother. Let maturer womanhood be meditative or passionate or .proud, let others be absorbed in husband or home, she ■ goes on her free way, impatient of interference, prompt to resent intrusion. Artemis has the cold and rather crude beauty of this early girlhood ; her slender form and deli- 276 THE GREEK GODDESSES. cate limbs distinguish her statnes from all others, so that even when mutilated thej are known at once. But it is a brief and simple epoch that Artemis rep- resents. Afler early girlhood comes the maturity of Tirgin womanhood, touched bj meditation, not yet by passion. This the Greek mythology symbolizes in Pal- las Athena. She is the riper Artemis, passing beyond her early nymph-like years, and reaching the highest con- iummatioQ that woman can, attain alone. And so fasci* Dating is this moment of serene self-poise, that the virgin Athena ranks in some respects at the head of all the goddesses. Beside her Artemis is undeveloped, while all the rest have passed in a manner out of themselves, have shared the being of others and the responsibilities of love or home. Of all conceptions of woman ever framed, Athena most combines strength and loveliness. Sbp has no feeble aspect, no relation of dependence ; he^ purity is the height of power. No compliment ever paid to woman was so high as that paid by the Greeks, when incarnating the highest wisdom in this maiden's form, and making this attribute only increase her virtue and her charms. Hence at Athens — **the Greece of Greece,"* as the one epigram of Thucydides calls it — she is reverenced above all deities, chief guardian of the most wondrous community of the world. Above the most magnificent gallery of art which the world has ever seen, because comprising a whole city, her colossal image stands pre- eminent, carved by Phidias in ivory and gold. The ap- proaching sailor's first glimpse of Athens is the gleaming of the sun's rays from her spear and shield. This is because her sacred olive-plant sprang from the earth when the first stone of the infant settlement was laid, * 'EXX450J *E\\As. Brunck, Analecta II. 236. ' THE GREEK GODDESSES. 277 and now the citj and its name and its glory must be hers. And such renown is indeed her birthright. Born without a mother, directly from the brain of Zeus, — to . bring her as near as possible to the creative intellect, — she inherits, beyond all others, that attribute. She re- tains the privilege of that sublime cradle, and, whenever she bows her head, it is as if Zeus had nodded, — a privi- lege which he has giveh to her alone. That is ratified to which Pallas hath bowed assent, says Callimachus.* Yet while thus falling but one degree below omnipotence, she possesses a beauty which is beyond that of Aphrodite. If the cowherd Alexander (Paris) judges otherwise, it is merely the taste of a cowherd, as the epigram of Hermo- dorus fearlessly declares; The busts of Athena seem always grave and sweet ; never domineering, like those of Artemis, nor languish- ing, like those of Aphrodite. Tbey are known from all others by the length of the hair, whence the Greek oath, "by the tresses of Athena." In the descriptions, she alone is blue-eyed, to show that shB dwells above all clouds, while even the auburn-haired Aphrodite, in the Iliad, has large black eyes. She is more heavily armed than the fleet-footed Artemis, and sometimes, for added protection, there are serpents clinging to her robe, while a dragon watches at her feet This is the Greek Athena, transformed in Rome to a prosaic Minerva, infinitely use- fuj and practical, teaching the mechanic arts, and the un- wearied patroness of schoolmasters. But Athena's maiden meditation is simply one stage in a woman's life, not its completion. It is the intellectual * T6 d* itn-eXis $ k iwwei^ HoWAj. Callim., Hymn V. 131, 182.' 278 THE GREEK GODDESSES. blossoming of existence, for man or woman, this earlier epoch, ^'unvowed as yet to family or state." But a career That seeks completeness pauses not here. When love touches and transforms the destiny, what then ? Then comes the reign of Aphrodite, the beautiful, the wronged. Wronged, because human coarseness can- not keep up to the conceptions of the celestial Venus, but degrades her into a French lorette, and fills story- books with her levities. How unlike, this are the con- ceptions of Plato, whose philosophy has been called ^ a mediation of love." Love, according to him, first taught the arts to mankind, — arts of existence, arts of wisdom. Love inspires self-sacrifice; he who loves will die for another. " Love," he says, in his Banquet,* "is peace and good- will among men, calm upon the waters, repose and still- ness in the storm, the balm of sleep in sadness. Before love all harsh passions fiee away. Love is author of sofl affections, destroyer of ungentle thoughts, merciful and mild, the admiration of the wise, the delight of the gods. Love divests us of all alienation from each other, and fills our vacant hearts with overflowing sympathy. Love is the valued treasure of the fortunate and 'desired by the unhappy (therefore unhappy because they possess not love) ; the parent of grace, of gentleness, of delicacy ; a cherisher of all that is good, but guileless as to evil ; in labor and in fear, in longings of the afiection or in soar- ings of the reason, our best pilot, confederate, supporter, and savior ; ornament and governor of all things human: and divine; the best, the loveliest, whom every one should follow with songs of exultation, uniting in the divine harmony with which love forever soothes the mind of men and gods." * Mackay*s translation. THE GREEK GODDESSES. 279 Now love is Aphrodite, either represented by the god- dess herself or by her son and"^ viceregent, who seems almost identified with herself; "N'etait autre *que la deesse elle-m6me, douee dii sexe masculin," as Em^ric- David well states it. " Love," says Empedocles, in that great philosophical poem of which fragments only re- main, " is not discoverable by the eye, but only by in- tellect; its elements are indeed innate in our mortal constitution, and we give it the names of Joy and Aphro- dite ; but in its highest universality no mortal hath fully comprehended it." Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Harmonia, ac- cording to some legends ; while, according to others, Har- monia is her daughter by Ares, and the mother of Aphrodite is the child of Heaven and Earth. She is usually ' seen naked, unlike every other goddess save Artemis. Yet Praxiteles represented her veiled at Cos ;" others armed her as Venus Victrix ; Phidias carved her In ivory and gold, her feet resting on a tortoise, as if to imply deliberation, not heedlessness. The conscious look of the Venus de' Medici implies modesty, since she is supposed to be standing before Paris with Hera and Athena. In Homer's hymn to her she is described as ordinarily cold and unimpressable, and only guiding others to love, till Zeus, by his sovereign interference, makes her mind to wander and she loves a mortal man. And though she regards Anchises simply as her husband, and calls herself his wedded wife, yet she is saddened by the thought of her fall, as much as Artemis when she loves Endymion. This is Homer when serious ; but the story of her intrigue with Ares he puts into the mouth of a wandering minstrel in the Odyssey, as a relief from graver song, and half disavows it, as if knowing its irreverence. 280 THE GREEK GODDESSES. The tnie Aphrodite is to be sought in the h3rmns of Homer, Orpheus, and Proclus. The last invokes her as yet a ^rgin.* Jt is essential to her very power that she should have the provocation of modesty. She represents that passion which is the basis of purity, for the author of Ecce Homo admirably says, that " No heart is pure which is not passionate." Accordingly, married love is as sacred to Aphrodite as the virgin condition ; f if she misleads, it is through sincere passion, not frivolity. No cruelty comes where she dwells; no animal sacrifices are offered her, but only wreaths of flowers; and the month of April, when the earth stirs ag^in into life, is her sacred time. But love legitimately reaches, its fulfilment in marriage. Afler Aphrodite comes Hera (the Roman Juno), who, in the oldest mythology, is simply the wife of 2^us (or Jupi- ter), and the type and protector of marriage. Her es- pousals are represented at tlie festivals as the Sacred Marriage. | She must be the twin sister of Zeus, as well a» his wife, that there may be a more perfect equality, and their union for the same reason must be from birth, and, were it possible, before birth. She is the only god- dess who is legitimately and truly married, for Aphrodite is but the unwilling wife of Hephaistos, and bears him no children. Hence Hera wears a diadem and a bridal veil ; her beauty is of a commanding type, through . the large eyes and the imperious smfle, as in the ^' Ludovisi Juno." Winckelmann says it is impossible to mistake a head of Hera. Athena commands like a princess ; Hera, like a queen. Her name is connected with the ^olic * Bapo8lTriv. Proclus, Hymn III.. 1. t 'ApodlTrj yd/Mv tXokcus ^derac. Tatian,Orat. contra Grsecos, c. 8. J *l€pbs ydfAOf, THE GREEK GODDESSES. 281 fypos, which signifies mastery, and it is identical with the Eoroan hera, or mistress. But with all this effort to make her equal in rank to her husband, it is still the equality of a queen, superior to all except her spouse, and yielding to him. The highest gods reverence Hera, but she reveres Zeus. His domestic . relations, therefore, are a despotism tempered by scolding. The divine husband, having the essential power, is the more amiable of the wedded pair. Zeus, in Homer, can-^ not comprehend why his wife should so hate the Trojans, but he lets her have her way against his own preference. If he consults others without her knowledge^ she censures him. When he avows his purpose in the very council of the gods, she reviles him, and says, " Do so, but we the other gods do not approve " ; and l^e says to her, presently, '' Do as thou wilt, lest this contention be in future a great strife between thee and me." It seems a doubtful state of discipline. But if we will deify marriage, we must take the consequences. Still there is a prevailing grandeur and dignity in their relation. Margaret Fuller, whose writings show so fine an instinct for the Greek symbolism, points out that on antique gems and bas-reliefs, in the meetings between god and goddess, " they rather offer to one another the full flower of being than grow together. As in the figures before me, Jupiter, king of gods and men, meets Juno, the sister and queen, not as a chivalric suppliant, but as a stately claimant, and she, crowned, pure, majestic, holds the veil aside to reveal herself to her august spouse." Accordingly, when Zeus embraces Hera on Mount Ida, clothed in fascinations like those of Aphrodite, all nature is hushed, in Homer's description ; the contending armies- are still ; before this sublime union, these tokens of rever- 282 THE GREEK GODDESSES. ence ai« fitting. The union of husband and wife — a thing of levity or coarseness on common lips — is trans- ferred by Homer to a scene where all the solemnities of earth and air become but tributary to the divine meeting. And thus the symbols of the Holy Marriage interweave themselves wfth the associations and practices of the nation, and secure a religious dignity for the institution in the Greek mind. But woman*8 career is incomplete even as a wife ; she must also be a mother. Then comes before us the great mystical and maternal deity of Greeoe, Demeter of the Eleusinian mysteries, the Roman Ceres. Her very name signifies " mother," probably yrj firiTTipy Mother Earth. Euripides says, in his Bacchanals, that the Greeks honor chiefly two deities, — one being 'Demeter (who is the Earth, he says, if ^n prefer to call her so), and the other the son of Semele. Demeter is, like Hera, both sister and in a manner wife of Zeus, to bring her into equality with him. Yet she is a virgin, even when she bears a child, Persephone or Proserpine. In a sense this maiden is the child of Zeus, but not in a mortal manner, — by an inefiable conception,* says the Orphic Hymn. All Demeter's existence is concentrated on this mother- hood. She feeds the human race, but when she is deprived of her daughter, she stops the course of the seasons for one year, till the beloved be restored. Nor is there for a time any change even after her daughter's return, until Zeus sends Demeter's own mother to persuade her, thus con- trolling the might of motherhood by motherhood alone. She thus goes through sufiering to glory, and Gro'te well names her the Mater Dolorosa of Greece. * 'Apfyfyrowi 701/ats. Hymn XXIX. 7. I THE GREEK GODDESSES. 283 As this reverence of Demeter for her own mother car- ries the sacredness of maternity a generation further back, so it is carried a generation further forward by the refusal of Persephone to return permanently to the upper world. Having eaten pomegranate seeds, the legend says, she will go back to her husband. But the pomegranate is the symbol of the felicities of marriage, and its promise of off- spring. Thus on every side it is maternity which is canon- ized in the myth o^ Demeter, and the concentration on this of every quality of her nature makes her stand the immortal representative of woman as mother. This is the central symbol of the Eleusinian mysteri^, ranking first among the religious ceremonials of Greece. The Mother and Daughter, on Athenian lips, mean always Demeter and Persephone ; and through them this relation is glori- fied, as wifehood becomes sublime in Hera, love in Aphro- dite, and maidenhood, active or contemplative, in Artemis and Athena. But besides these ^\q attitudes of woman as girl, maiden, lover, wife, and mother, there must be finally one which shall comprise all of these, and may outlast them all. Hestia, or Vesta, is the sister of Zeus, but not his wife like Hera, nor his symbolical mistress like Demeter ; nay, when sought in marriage by Phoebus and Poseidon, she has sworn by the head of Zeus to be a vir- gin forever. She represents woman as queen of home. Houses^are her invention. No separate temple is built to her, for every hearth is her altar ; no special sacrifices are offered, for she has the first share of every sacrifice. Every time the household meets before the hearth, she is namedi and the meal becomes thereby an act of worship. Every in-door oath must be sworn by her. The worst criminal who enters the house and touches the hearth is sacred for her sake. 284 THE GREEK GODDESSES. On the eighth day of the Greek baby's life comes its baptism before Hestia, not with water but with fire, — the ceremony of the Amphidromia, when the nurse and all the women of the house bear the little one to the hearth. Laying aside their clothing, — because this is the intimate domestic ritual, when body and soul are con- secrated in their uncovered purity, — they pass in pro- cession round the central fiame, and thenceforth Hestia is the protectress of the child. • And observe how beautifully this sublime protection of the hearth is spread yet further. As the city itself is but an extended family, so the city also has its sacred hearth, where the public fire is kept burning, and the public sup- pliants come. The fugitive entering the town comes here for safety, and is unmolested. Foreign ambassadors are here met and greeted by the magistrates. If a colony goes forth, the emigrants take coals from the public hearth of the town they leave. Hestia's fire must never go out ; if it does, it must only b6 rekindled from the sun. Thus in Greece, as in Rome afterwards, the vestal virgins must be viewed as guarding the central sacred- nes^ of the state. Hence the fearful penalty on their misdeeds, and the vast powers they hold. So incarnated in them is the power of the hearth that they bear it with them, and if they meet a criminal, he must be set free. I know no symbol of the power of a sublime womanhood like that, — the assumption that vice cannot live in its presence, but is transformed to virtue. Could any wo- man Once be lifted to a realizing sense of power like that, she might willingly accept the accompanying penalty of transgression. She never would transgress. Here, then, we have the six primary goddesses of the Greek mythology. It will be said that, even according THE GREEK GODDESSES. 285 to the highest poetic treatment, these deities had their im- perfections. Certainly ; this was their crowning merit, for it made them persons, and not mere abstractions. Their traits were all in keeping ; their faults belonged to their temperaments. Doubtless these characters grew up in the early fancy of that people as fictitious characters grow up in the mind of a novelist ; after a little while they get beyond his control, take their destiny into their own hands, and if he tries to make them monotonously fault- less, they rebeL So that wondrous artist we call the Greek nation found itself overmastered by the vivid per- sonality of these creations of its own. It was absolutely obliged to give Hera, the wife, her jealous imperiousness, and Artemis, the maid, her cruel chastity. Zeus and ActaBon were the sufferers, because consistency and na- ture willed it so, and refused to omit these slight excesses. So Athena, the virgin, must be a shade too cold, and Aphrodite, the lover, several shades too warm, that there may be reality and human interest. Demeter, the mother, will sacrifice the whole human race for Jier child ; and even Hestia is pitiless to those who profane the sacred altar of home. Each of these qualities is the stamp of nature upon the goddess, holding fast the ideal, lest it recede beyond human ken. So perfect was this prism of feminine existence, it comprised every primary color. So well did this series of divinities cover all the functions of womanly life, that none could fail of finding her tutelary goddess in some shrine. An imaginative Greek girl had nof an epoch nor an instant that was not ennobled. Every act of her existence was glorified in some temple ; every dream of her silent hours took garlands and singing robes around it. In her yet childish freedom she was Artemis; '^in 286 THE GREEK GODDESSES. maiden meditation, fancy free," sbe was Athena ; when fancy-boand, she was Aphrodite; when her life was bound in wedlock, she was Hera; when enriched by motherhood, she became Demeter, and she was thence- forth the Hestia of her own home, at least Her life was like a revolving urn, upon which she could always see one great symbolic image sculptured, though each in its turn gave way to another. And this influence was enhanced by the actual partici- pation of Greek women in the ceremonies of religion, when conducted upon a scale that our modem imagina- tions can hardly reproduce. The little five-year-old maids, yellow-dad, who chanted lines from Homer at the festival of Artemis Brauronia; the virgins who from seven to eleven dwelt on the rock of the Acropolis, and wove the saered garment of Athena, themselves robed in white, with ornaments of gold ; the flower-wreathed girls who bore baskets through the streets at the Panathenaea ; the matrons who directed the festival of Hera at Elis ; the maidens who ran in that sacred race, knowing that the victor's portrait would be dedicated in the temple; the high-priestess of Hera at Argos, from whose accession the citizens dated their calendar of years ; the priestesses of Demeter, who alone of all women might attend the Olympic games ; . all these saw womanhood deified in their goddesses and dignified in themselves. The vast religious ceremonial appealed alike to the high-born maidens who ministered at the altars, and to the peasant- girls through whom the oracles spoke. Every range of condition and of culture might be comprised among the hundreds who assembled before daybreak to bathe the image of Pallas in the sacred river, or the thousands who walked with consecrated feet in the long procession to THE GREEK GODDESSES. 287 Eleusis. In indiyidual cases, the service brought out such noble virtue as that of the priestess Theano, who, when Alcibiades was exiled from Athens and was sen- tenced to be cursed by all who served at the altar, alone refused to obey, saying that she was consecrated to bless and not to curse. But even among the mass of Greek women, where so much time was spent in sharing or ob- serving this ritual of worship, life must have taken some element of elevation through contact with the great ideal women of the sky. We cannot now know, but can only conjecture, bow far the same religious influence inspired those Greek women who, in more secular spheres of duty, left their names on their country's records. When Corinna defeated Pindar in competing for the poetic prize; when Helen of Alex- andria painted her great historic picture, consecrated in the Temple of Peace ; when the daughter of Thucydides aided or completed her father's great literary work ; when the Athenian Agnodice studied medicine, disguised as a man, and practised it as a man, and was prosecuted as a seducer, and then, revealing her sex, was prosecuted for her deception, till the chief women of Athens appeared in ^er behalf and secured for their sex the right to be physi- cians ; when Telesilla of Argos roused her countrywomen to defend the walls against the Spartans, the men having lost courage, — after which, in a commemorative festival, the women appeared in male attire and the men came forth veiled; — all these women but put in action the lessons of aspiration which they had learned in the tem- ples. This inspiration derived by womanly genius from it's deity is finely recognized by Antipater of Thessalonica in that fine epigram where he enumerlites the nine poetesses of Greece,* calls them ^^ artists of immortal 288 THE GREEK GODDESSES. worksy^ and grandly characterizes them as '^ women who spoke like gods in their hymns." *' I do not propose to go further; and discuss the actual condition of the average Greek woman. That would demand an essay by itself. You may place the actual condition of any class very high or- very low if you look at it two thousand years after, and select all the facts either on the favorable or on the unfavorable side. Yet this is what St. John and Becker, for instance, in writing of the Greek women, have respectively done. I can honestly say that all modern literature and art taken together seem to me to have paid to woman no tribute so reverential as in the worship of the great ideals I have named. But in actual life it must be owned that there seems to have been the same strange mingling of delicate courtesy and of gross contempt for woman which marks our society to-day. Margaret Fuller, whose opinion on this subject was worth more than that of any other woman in America, or than that of most men, went further and wrote : ^ Certainly the Greeks knew more of real home intercourse and more of woman than the Americans. It is in vain to tell me of outward observances. The poets, the sculptors, always tell the truth." And there is undoubtedly much in the more serious Greek literature which may be quoted to sustain this as- sertion. There is a remarkable passage of Plato, in which he says that children may find comedy more agreeable, but educated women f and youths and the ma- jority of mankind prefer tragedy. This distinctly redog- * O€oy\d> Kal 6 (rriipavos, Brunck, II, 394. THE GREEK GODDESSES. 293 We must remember that, as Grote has well said, all we know of the Greeks is so much saved from a wrecked vessel; and while greater and rarer things are brought on shore, the myriad of small and common things are gone. It is only in the little poems of the Anthology that we unveil, as in a Pompeian house, the familiar aspects of domestic life. There the husband addresses his wife, the son his mother ^ and home traits and simple joys are recorded. There we find portrayed the intel- lect, there the heart, of the Greek woman. " Melissias denies her love, and yet her body cries out, as if it had . received a quiver full of arrows ; unsteady is her gait, unsteady her panting breath, and hollow are the sinkings of her eyelids." Or, "I lament for the maiden An- tibia, for whom many suitors came to her father's house, through the renown of her beauty and intelligence,* but destructive fate has rolled away their hopes far . from all." Perhaps nothing among these poems gives so naive and delicate a glimpse of Greek maidenhood as this inscription from a votive offering in the temple of Arte- mis, where brides were wont to offer their childish toys at the approach of ^ their nuptials. It is one of the vast mass of anonymous poems in the Anthology : — " Timarete, before her marriage, has offered to Arte- mis her tambourine, and her precious ball, and her net that protected her locks, and her doHs and her dolls' dresses, as is fitting for a virgin to a virgin, O Limnatis ! And do thou, daughter of Latona, place thy hand over the girl Timarete, and preserve holily her who is holy."t Think of the open grossness of English epithalamiums * UivvTaros. Brunck, I. 201. The other poem, II. 395. , t Zc^^-otf tAj' 6aLay 6alws. Brunck, III. 173. 294 THE GREEK GODDESSES. down almost to the present day, ahd of the smooth sensii- alities of French literature ; aud then consider the calm, strong sweetness of that prayer for this childish bride, — ** Preserve holily her who is holy." Are the bridals of Trinity Church such an advance beyond the temple of Arteinis ? At any rate, the final result of Greek worship was this. In its temples the sexes stood equal, goddess was as sublime as god, priestess the peer of priest ; there was every influence io ennoble a woman^s ideal of womanhood so long as- her worship lasted, and nothing to discourage her from the most consecrated career. In Protestant Christian churches, on the other hand, the rep- resentations of Deity are all masculine, the Mediator mas- culine, the evangelists, the apostles, the Church fathers^ all masculine ; so are the ministers and the deacons ; even the old-time deaconess, sole representative of the ancient priestess, is gone; nothing feminine is lefl but the worshippers, and they indeed are feminine^ three to one. The Boman Catholic Church, with more wisdom of adaptation, has kept one goddess from the Greek ; and the transformed Demeter, with her miraculously bom child, which is now become masculine, presides over every altar. Softened and beautified from the elder image, it is still the same, — the same indeed with all the my tho- logic mothers, with the Maternal Goddess who sits, with a glory round her head and a babe on her bosom, in every Buddhist house in China, or with Isis who yet nurses Horus on the monuments of Egypt. As far as history can tell, this group first appeared in Christian art when used as a symbol, in the Nestorian controversy, by Cyril, who had spent most of his life in Egypt. Ne&- THE GREEK GODDESSES. 295 torius was condemned in the fifth century, for asserting Mary to be the mother of the human nature of Jesus, and not. also of the divine ; and it was at this time that the images of the Virgin and Child* were multiplied, to protest against the heretic who had the minority of votes. After all, Christian ritualism is but a palimpsest, and if we go an inch below the surface anywhere, there is some elder sanctity of Greece or Rome. I remember how tliis- first flashed upon me, when I saw, in a photograph of the Pantheon, the whole soul of the ancient faith in the words, " Deo : Opt : Max " : and again, when in the first Roman Catholic procession I ever saw, a great ban- ner came flapping round the windy corner with only the inscription " S. P. Q. R." The phrase under which ancient Rome subdued the world still Lingers in those borrowed initials, and the Church takes its goddess, like its banner, at second-hand. If we set aside its queen, the Church has added no new image. JVIartyrs are abundant in every faith, and saint and sibyl add but a few softer touches to the antique. Mary Magdalene is really the sole modem figure, and she has not an ideal interest, but one that is philanthropic alone. Her presence in art asserts the modern spirit, and perhaps marks an era in history. Far be it from me to deny its value. Yet if we are looking for the very highest, it cannot be found in the fallen ; and if we must lose either from the temple, we can better spare the sup- pliant than the goddess. And save in depicting this attribute of humility or con- trition, modern literature, at least since Petrarch, seems to me singularly wanting in grand pictures of ideal womanhood. Spenser's impetsoiiations, while pure and high, are vague and impalpable. Shakespeare's women 296 THE GREEK GODDESSES. Beem at best far inferior, in compass and variety, to Shakeffpeare's men ; arid if Ruskin glorifies them sub- limely on the one side, Thackeray on the^ther side pro- fesses to find in them the justification of his. own. Goethe paints carefully a few varieties, avoiding the largest and noblest types. Where among all these delineations is there a woman who walks the earth like a goddess? Where is the incessu patuit dea or Homer's dta ywaiKSiv ? Among recent writers, George Sand alone has dared even to attempt such a thing ; she tries it in Consuelo, and before the divinity has got her wings full-grown, she is enveloped, goddess-like, in the ihost bewildering clouds. Perhaps it is precisely because these high ideals were 80 early reached, that it is now found hard to do more than reproduce them. As no sculptor can produce more than a Greek profile, so no poet has yet produced more than a Greek woman. Modern life has not aimed to elevate the ideal, but the average. Common intelligence spread more widely, sweetness ai^d purity protected, more respect for the humblest woman as woman, less faith in the sibyl and the saint, — this is modem life. In the Middle Ages there were glimpses, of a new creation. Raphael painted, Dante sang, something that promised more than Greece gave ; but it came to noth- ing. Superstition was in the way ; the new woman did not get herself disentangled from a false mythology and an unnatural asceticism, and was never fairly born. Art could not join what God had put asunder; the maid- mother was after all an image less noble than maid or mother separately. That path is closed ; I rejoice that we can have no more Madonnas ; we have come back to nature and are safe beneath its eternal laws. There is THE GREEK GODDESSES 297 no fear for the future; eternities stretch out that way, and only centuries the other. That wonderful old mythology is gone ; that great race shed it," lightly as leaves in autumn, and went its way. These names of Hera and Aphrodite are but autumn leaves which I have caught in my hands, to show the red tints that still linger on their surface ; they have lasted long, but who knows how soon they will be faded and forgotten ? Yet not till the world is rich enough to have a race more ideal than the Greeks will there be another harvest of anything so beautiful to the imagination. Nature is the same ; the soil of Attica was as barren as that of Massachusetts. The life of man has grown more practical, more judicious, more sensitive to wrong, more comprehensive in sympathy; common sense has been the gainer, so has common virtue ; it is only the ideal that has grown tame. We are laying the foundations of a grander temple, I trust, than any of which the Greeks ever dreamed, and we toil among the dust and rubbish, waiting for the god- dess and the shrine. Nothing shall drive me from the belief that there is arising in America, amid all our fri- volities, a type of virgin womanhood, new in history, undescribed in fiction, from which there may proceed, in generations yet to come, a priesthood more tender, a majesty more pure and grand, than anything which poet ever sang or temple enthroned. Through tears and smiles, through the blessed cares that have trained the heart of womanhood in all ages, but also through a cul- ture such as no other age has offered, through the exer- cise of rights never before conceded, of duties never yet imposed, will this heroic sisterhood be reared. Joining the unforgotten visions of Greek sublimity with the 13* 298 THE GREEK GODDESSES. meeker graces of Christian tradition, there may jet be noblerforms, that shall eclipse those ^ fair humanities of old religion '' ; as, when classic architecture had reached perfection, there rose the Gothic, and made the Greek seem cold. Note. — The Paris Remte Briiannique of October, 1869, contained a translation of this essay, under the title of Les Deessea Orecques^ in which occurred sojme amusing varia- tions. For instance, the mild satire of the sentence, " Their genealogies hare been discussed, as if they lived in Boston or Philadelphia," underwent this European adaptation : — " Lewr geneodogie a ete dtscutee comme ceUe des nobles dames de la sodetd modeme en Angleierre et en Frcmce pourrait Tetr^ dans un coWge heraldigue" r SAPPHO. i 4 SAPPHO. THE voyager in the -^gean Sea, who has grown weary of the prevailing barrenness of the Grecian Isles, finds at length, when in sight of Lesbos, something that fulfils his dreams of beauty. The village of Mity- lene, which now gives its name to the island, is built upon a rocky promontory, with a harbor on either hand. Behind it there are softly wooded hills, swelling to meet the abrupt bases of the loftier mountains. These hills are clothed in one dense forest of silvery olive and darker pomegranate, and as you ascend their paths, the myrtle, covered with delicate white blossoms, and exhaling a sweet perfume, forms a continuous arch above your head. The upper mountain heights rise above vegetation, but their ravines are dyed crimson with fringing, oleanders. From the summits of their passes you look eastward upon the pale distances of Asia Minor, or down upon the calm ^gean, intensely blue, amid which the island rests as if inlaid in lapis lazuli. This decaying Turkish village of Mitylene marks the site of what was, twenty-five centuries ago, one of the great centres of Greek civilization. The city then covered the whole breadth of the peninsula, and the 302 SAPPHO. grand canal, that separated it from the mainland, was crossed by bridges of white marble. The great theatre of Mitylene was such a masterpiece of architecture, that the Roman Pompej wished to copy it in the i^j^tropolis of the world. The city was dassed by Horace with Rhodes, Ephesas, and Corinth. Yet each of those places we now remember as fiunous in itself, while we think of Lesbos only as the home of Sappho. It was in the city of Mitylene that she lived and taught and sung. But to find her birthplace you must traverse nearly the length of the island, till you come to Ereso or Eresus, a yet smaller village, and Greek instead of Turkish. To reach it you must penetrate aromatic pine forests, where the deer lurk, and must ascend mountain paths like rocky ladders, where the mule alone can climb. But as you approach the village, you find pastoral beauty all around you ; though the ^olian lyric music is heard no more, yet the hillsides echo with sheep- bells and with the shepherds' cries. Among the villagers you find manners more simple and hospitable than else- where in the Greek islands ; there are more traces of the ancient beauty of the race; and the women on festal days wear long white veils edged with a crimson border, and look, as they follow one another to church, like processional figures on an antique urn. These women are permitted to share the meals of their husbands, contrary to the usual practice of rural Greece ; and as a compensation, they make for their husbands such admira- ble bread, that it has preserved its reputation for two thousand years. The old Greek poet Archestratus, who wrote a work on the art of cookery, said that if the gods were to eat bread, they would send Hermes to Eresus to buy it ; and the only modern, traveller, so fiur as I know. SAPPHO. 303 • who has visited the village, reports the same excellent receipt to be still in vogue.* It was among these well-trained women that the most eminent^poetess of the world was born. Let us now turn and look upon her in her later abode of Mitylene ; either in some garden of orange and myrtle, such as once skirted the city, or in that marble house which she called the dwelling of the Muses.f Let us call around her, in fancy, the maidens who have come from different parts of Greece to learn of her. Anactoria is here from Miletus, Eunica from Salamis,* Gongyla from Colophon, and- others from Pamphylia and the isle of Telos. Erinna and Damophyla study ^together the complex Sapphic metres Atthis learns how to strike the harp with the plectron, Sappho*s invention; Moasidica embroiders a sacred robe for the temple. The teacher meanwhile cor- rects the measures of one, the notes of another, the stitches of a third, then summons all from their work to rehearse together some sacred chorus or temple ritual ; then stops to read a verse of her own, or — must I say it ? — to denounce a rival preceptress. For if the too-fasciniating Andromeda has beguiled away some favorite pupil to one of those rival feminine academies that not only exist in Lesbos, but have spread as far as illiterate Sparta, then Sappho may at least wish to remark that Andromedft does not know how to dress herself. ^ And what woman ever charmed thy mind," she says to the vacillating piipil, '^ who wore a vulgar and tasteless dress, or did not know how to draw her garments close about her ankles?" Out of a long list of Greek poetesses there were seven * Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, by C. T. Newton, I. 99. London, 1865. t Mou(rox6\w oUlav, 304 SAPPHO. women who were, as a poem in the Greek Anthology says, "divinely tongaed" or "spoke like gods."* Of these Sappho was the admitted chief. Among the Greeks "the poet" meant Homer, and "the poetess" equally designated her. " There flourished in those days," said Strabo, writing a little before our era, " Sappho, a wondrous creature ; for we know not any woman to have appeared, within recorded time, who was in *the least to be compared with her in respect to poesy." The dates of her birth and death are alike uncertain, but she lived somewhere between the years 628 and 572 B. C. : thus flourishing three or four centuries after- Ho- mer, and less than two centuries before Pericles. Her father's name is variously given, and we can only hope, in charity, that it was not Scamandronimus. We have no better authority than that of Ovid for saying that he died when his daughter was six years old. Her mother's name was Cleis, and Sappho had a daughter of the same name. The husband of the poetess was probably named Cercolas, and there is a faint suspicion that he was a man of property. It is supposed that she became early a widow, and won most of her poetic fame while in that condition. She had at least two brothers: one being Laricbus, whom she praises for his graceful demeanor as cup-bearer in the public banquets, — an office which be- longed only to beautiful youths of noble birth ; the other was Charaxus, whom Sappho had occasion to reproach, according to Herodotus,! for buying and marrying a slave of disreputable antecedents. Of the actual events of Sappho's life almost nothing is known, except that she once had to flee for safety from * QeoryXdixraovs, Brunck, II. 114. t II. 135. SAPPHO. 305 Lesbos to Sicily, perhaps to escape the political persecu- tions that prevailed in the island. It is not necessary to assume that she had reached an advanced age when she spoke of herself as " one of the elders," * inasmucli as people are quite as likely to use that term of mild self- reproach while young enough for somebody to contradict them. It is hard to ascertain whether she possessed beauty even in her prime. Tradition represents her as having been ^ little and dark," but tradition describes Cleopatra in the same way ; and we should clearly lose much from history by ignoring all the eicecution done by small bru- nettes. The Greek Anthology describes her as "the pride of the lovely-hairdVLesbians " ; Plato calls her " the beautiful Sappho " or " the fair Sappho,*' t — as you please to render the phrase more or less ardently, — and Plutarch and Athenaeus use similar epithets. But when Professor Felton finds evidence of her charms in her portraits on the Lesbian coins, as engraved by Wolf, I must think that he is too easily pleased with the outside of the lady's head, however it may have been with the inside. The most interesting intellectual fact in Sappho's life was doubtless her relation to her great townsman Alcaeus. These two will always be united in fame as the joint founders of the lyric poetry of Greece, and therefore of the world. Anacreon was a child, or perhaps unborn, when they died ; and Pindar was a pupil of women who seem to have been Sappho's imitators, Myrtis and Corinna. The Latin poets Horace and Catullus, five or siK centuries after, drew avowedly from these ^olian * Tepairepa. t SaT0oOs TTjs KoKijs. Phaedr. 24. Homer celebrates the beau- ty of the Lesbian women in his day. Iliad, IX. 129, 271. - T 806 SAPPHO. > models, to whom nearly all their metres have been traced back. Horace wrote of Alcaeus : ^^ The Lesbian poet sang of war amid the din of arms, or when he had bound the storm-tossed ship to the moist shore, he sang of Bac- chus, and the Muses, of Venus and the boy who clings forever by her side, and of Lycus, beautiful with his black hair and black eyes." * But the name of tKe Greek singer is still better preserved to Anglo-Saxons through an imi- tation of a single fragment by Sir William Jones, -^ the noble poem beginning " What constitutes a state ? " It is worth while' to remember that we owe these fine lines to the lover of Sappho. And indeed the poems of Al- caeus, so far as they remain, Ifcw much of the grace and elegance of Horace, joined with a far more heroic tone. His life was spent amid political convulsions, in which he was prominent, and, in spite of his fine verses, it is sus- pected, from the evidence remaining, that he was a good deal of a fop and not much of a soldier ; and it is perhaps as well that the lady did not smile upon him, even in verse. Their loves rest, after all, rather on tradition than on direct evidence ; for there remain to us only two verses which Alcaeus addressed to Sappho. The one is a com- pliment, the other an apology. The compliment is found in one graceful line, which is perhaps her best descrip- tion : — " Violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho." The freshness of those violets, the charm of that smile, the assurance of that purity, all rest upon this one line, and securely rest. If every lover, having thus said in three epithets the whole story about his mistress, would be con- tent to retire into oblivion, and add no more, what a com- * Caxm. I. 82, 5. SAPPHO. 307 fort it would be I Alcseus unhappily went one phrase further, and therefore goes down to future ages, not only as an ardent lover, but as an unsuccessful one. For Aristotle, in his " Rhetoric," * records that thir poet once addressed Sappho as follows : — "I wish to^peak, but shame restrains my tongue." 'Now this apology may have had the simplest possible oc- casion. Alcseus may have undertaken to amend a verse of Sappho's and have spoiled it ; or he may have break- fasted in the garden, with her and her maidens, and may have spilled some honey from Hymettus on a crimson- bordered veil froni Eresus. But it is recorded by Aris- totle that the violet-crowned thus answered : " If thy wishes were fair and noble, and thy tongue designed not to utter what is base, shame would not cloud thine eyes, but thou wouldst freely speak thy just desires." Never was reproof more exquisitely uttered than is this in the Greek ; and if we take it for serious, as we probably should, there is all the dignity of womanhood in the re- ply, so that Sappho comes well out of the dialogue, how- ever it may be with her wooer. But if, as is. also pos- sible, the occasion was but trivial, it is rather refreshing to find these gifted lovers, in the very morning of civiliza- tion, simply rehearsing just the dialogue that goes on be- tween every village school-girl and her awkward swain, when he falters and " fears to speak," and says finally the wrong thing, and- she blushingly answers, "I should think you would be ashamed." # But whether the admiration of Alcasus was more or less ardent, it certainly was not peculiar to him. There were hardly any limits to the enthusiasm habitually ex- * Caim. I. 9. 308 SAPPHO. m pressed in ancient times for the poetry of Sappbo. In respect to the abundance of laurels, she stands unap- proached among women, even to the present day. JBlian preserves the tradition that the recitation of one of her poems s^-^Tected the great lawgiver Solon, that he ex- pressed the wish that he might not die till he had learned it by heart. Plato called her the tenth Muse. Others de- scribed her as uniting in herself the qualities of Muse and Aphrodite ; and others again as the joint foster-child of Aphrodite, Cupid, and the Graces. Grammarians lectured on her poems and wrote essays on her metres ; and her image appeared on at least six different coins of her native land. And it has generally been admitted by modern crit- ics that " the loss of her poems is the greatest over which we have to mourn in the whole range of Greek literature, at least of the imaginative species." Now why is it that, in case of a woman thus famous, some cloud of reproach has always mingled with the in- cense ? In part, perhaps, because she was a woman, and thus subject to harsher criticism in coarse periods of the world's career. More, no doubt, because she stood in a transition period of history, and, in a contest between two social systems, represented an unsuccessful effort to com- bine the merits of both. In the Homeric period the posi- tion of the Greek woman was simple and free. In the Iliad and Odyssey she is always treated with respect; un- like most of the great poems of modern Europe, they do not contain an indelicate line. But with the advangng cul- ture of the Ionian colonies, represented by Athens, there inevitably arose the question, wbat to do with the women. Should they be admitted to share this culture, or be ex- cluded ? Athens, under the influence of Asiatic models, decided to exclude them. Sparta and the Dorian colonies, SAPPHO. 309 * on the other hand, preferred to exclude the culture. It was only the ^olian colonies, such as Lesbos, that under- took to admit the culture and the women also. Nowhere else in Greece did women occupy what we should call a modern position. The attempt was premature, and the reputatioa of Lesbos was crushed in the process. Among the lonians of Asia, according to Herodotus, the wife did not share the table of her husband ; she dared not call him by his name, but addressed him with the title of ^ Lord " ; and this was hardly an exaggeration of the social habits of Athens itself. But among the Do- rians of Sparta, and probably among the ^olians as well, the husband called his wife '^ mistress,'' not in subserviency, but after the English peasant fashion ; Spartan mothers preserved a power over their adult sons such as was no- where else seen; the dignity of maidenhood was cele- brated in public songs, called " Parthenia," which were peculiar to Sparta ; and the women took so free a part in the conversation, that Socrates, in a half-sarcastic passage in the " Protagoras," .compares their quickness of wit to that of the men.^ The Spartan women, in short, were free, though ignorant, and this freedom the Athenians thought bad enough. But when the ^olians of Lesbos carried the equality a step further, and to free- dom added culture, the Athenians found it intolerable. Such an innovation was equivalent to setting up the Protestant theory of woman's position as against the Roman Catholic, or the English against the French. It is perhaps fortunate for historic justice that we have * The best authority in regard to the Spartan women is K. 0. Miiller's **Dorier," Book IV. c. iv., also Book V. c. viii. §5 (Eng. tr. Vol. II: pp. 290 - 300 ; also p. 311). For his view of the women of Lesbos, see his '* Literature of Greece" (Eng. tr.), c. xiii. 310 SAPPHO. within our reach an illastration so obvious, showing the way in which a whole race of women may be miscon- strued. If a Frenchman visits America and sees a joung girl walking or riding with a young man, he is apt to assume that she is of doubtful character. Should he hear a married woman talk about '* emancipation/' he will infer either that her marriage is not legal, or that her husband has good reason to wish it were not. Precisely thus did an Athenian view a Lesbian woman ; and if she collected round her a class of young pupils for instruction, so much 'the worse. He could no more imagine any dif- ference between Sappho and Aspasia, than could a French- man between Margaret Fuller and George Sand. To claim any high moral standard, in either case, would merely strengthen the indictment by the additional count of hypocrisy. Better Aspasia than a learned woman who had the effrontery to set up for the domestic virtues. The stories that thus gradually camelo be told about Sappho in later years — scandal at longer and longer range — were simply inevitable, from the point of view of Athens. If Aristophanes spared neither Socrates nor Euripides, why should his successors spare Sappho? Therefore the reckless comic authors of that luxurious city, those Pre-Bohemians of literature, made the most of their game. Ameipsias, Amphis, Antiphanes, Diphilus, EphippuSjTimocles, all wrote farces bearing the name of a woman who had died in excellent repute, so far as ap- pears, two centuries before. With what utter reckless- ness they did their work is shown by their naming as her lovers Archilochus, who died before she was born, and Hipponax, who was born after she died. Then came, in later literature, the Roman Ovid, who had learned from licentious' princesses to regard w^omanly virtue as only a SAPPHO. 311 pretty fable. He took up the tale of Sappho, conjured up a certain Fhaon, with whom she might be enamored, and left her memory covered with stains such as even the Leucadian leap could not purge. Finally, since Sappho was a heathen, a theologian was found at last to make an end of her ; the Church put an apostolic sanction upon these corrupt reveries of the Roman profligate, and Ta- tian, the Christian Father, fixed her name in ecclesiasti- cal tradition as that of '' an impure and lovesick woman who sings her own shame." * The process has, alas ! plenty of parallels In history. Worse, for instance, than the malice of the Greek come- dians or of Ovid — since they possibly believed their own stories — was the attempt made by Voltaire to pollute, through twenty-one books of an epic poem, the stainless fame of his own virgin coufitry woman, Joan of Arc. In that work he revels in a series of impurities so loathsome that the worst of them are omitted from the common edi- tions, and only lurk in appendices, here and there, as if even the shameless printing-presses of Paris were ashamed of them. Suppose, now, that the art of printing had remained undiscovered, that all contemporary memo- rials of this maiden had vanished, and posterity had pos- sessed no record of her except Voltaire's " Pucelle." In place of that heroic image there would have remained to us only a monster of profligacy, unless some possible Welcker had appeared, long centuries after, to right the wrong. The remarkable essay of Welcker,t from which all modern estimates of Sappho date, was first published in ♦ Tatian, Adv. Gnecos, c. 33. Ovid, Heroid., XV. 61-70. + ** Sappho von einem hen-schenden Vorurtheil befreit," Welck- er, Kleine Schriften, II. 80. See also his "Sappho," a review of 312 SAPPHO. 1816, under the title, " Sappho vindicated from a pre- vailing Prejudice." It was a remarkable instance of the power of a single exhaustive investigation- to change the verdict of scholars. Bishop Thirlwall, for instance, says of it : *' The tenderness of Sappho, whose character has been rescued, by one of the happiest efforts of modern criticism, from the unmerited reproach under which it had labored for so many centuries, appears to have been no less pure than glowing." And Felton, who is usually not more inclined than becomes a man and a professor to put a hig}i estimate on literary women, declares of her that ''she has shared the fortunes of others of her sex, endowed like her with God's lichest gifls of intellect and heart, who have been the victims of remorseless calumny for asserting the prerogatives of genius, and daring to compete with men in the struggle for fame and glory." Indeed, I know of no writer since Welcker who has seriously attempted to impugn his conclusions, except Colonel Mure, an Edinburgh advocate, whose onslaught upon Sappho is so vehement that Felton compares it to that of John ICnox on Mary Stuart, and finds in it proof of a constitutional hostility between Scotch ]Presby terians and handsome women. But Mure's scholarship is not high, when tried by the German standard, whatever it may be according to the English or American. His book is also somewhat viti- ated in this respect by being obviously written under a theory, namely, that love, as a theme for poetry, is a rather low and debasing thing ; that the subordinate part it plays in Homer is one reason why Homer is great ; Neue's edition of her works, first published in 1828 (K. S., 1. 110), and "Sappho und Phaon," published in 1863, a review of Mure and Theodor Kock (K. S., V. 228). SAPPHO. 313 and that the decline of literature began with lyric poetry, " A ready subjection," he says, " to the fascinations of the inferior order of their species can hardly be a solid basis of renown for kings or heroes/' Such a critic could hardly be expected to loo*k with favor upon one who not only chose an inferior order of themes, but had the temerity to belong to an inferior order herself. Apart from this, I am unable to see that this writer brings forward anything to disturb the verdict of abler scholars. He does not indeed claim to produce any direct evidence of his proposition that Sappho was a cor- rupt woman, and her school at Lesbos a nursery of sins ; but he seeks to show this indirectly, through a minute criticism of her writings. Into this he carries, I regret to say, an essential coarseness of mind, like that of Voltaire, which delights to torture the most innocent phrases till they yield a double meaning. He reads these graceful fragments as the sailors in some forecastle might read Juliet's soliloquies, or as a criminal lawyer reads in court the letters of some warm-hearte^l woman ; the shame lying not in the words, but in the tongue. The manner in which he gloats over the scattered lines of a wedding song, for instance, weaving together the phrases and supplying the innuendoes, is enough to rule him out of the class of pure- minded men. But besides this quality of coarseness, he shows a serious want of candor. For though he admits that Sappho first introduced into literature (in her Epitha- lamia) a dramatic movement, yet he never gives her the benefit of this dramatic attitude except where it suits his own argument. It is as if one were to cite Browning into court and undertake to convict him, on his own confession^ of sharing every mental condition he describes. What, then, was this Lesbian school that assembled 14 I 314 SAPPHO. around Sappbo? Mure pronounces it to have been s school of vice. The Germail professors see in it a school of science. Professor Felton thinks that it maj have re- sembled the Courts of Love in the Middle Ages; But a more reasonable parallel, nearer home, must occur to the minds of those of us who remember Margaret Fuller and her classes. If Sappho, in addition to all that the Ameri- can gave her pupils, undertook the duty of instruction in the most difficult music, the most complex metres, and the profoundest religious rites, then she had on her hands quite too much work to be exclusively a troubadour ov9,8avante or a sinner. And if such ardent attachments as Margaret Fuller inspired among her own sex were habitually ex- pressed by Sappho's maideiT lovers, in the language of Lesbos instead of Boston, we can easily conceive of senti- mental ardors which Attic comedians would find ludicrous and Scotch advocates nothing less than a scandal. Fortunately we can come within six centuries of the real Lesbian society in the reports of Maximus Tyrius, whom Felton strangely calb " a- tedious writer of the time of the Antonines," but who seems to me often to rival Epictetus and Plutarch in eloquence and nobleness of tone. In his eighth dissertation he draws a parallel between the in- struction given by Socrates to men and that afforded by Sappho to women. " Each," he says, " appears to me to deal with the same kind of love, the one as subsisting among males, the other among females." ** What Alcibi- ades and Charmides and Phoedrus are with Socrates, that Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria are with the Lesbian. And what those rivals Prodicus, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, and Protagoras, are to Socrates, that Gorgo and Andromeda are to Sappho. At one time she reproves, at another she confutes these, and addresses SAPPHO. * 316 them in the same ironical language with Socrates." Then he draws parallels between the writings of the two. " Diotima says to Socrates that love flourishes in abun« dance, but dies in want Sappho conveys the same mean- ing when she calls love * sweetly bitter ' and 'a painful gift.' Socrates calls love * a sophist/ Sappho * a ringlet of words.' Socrates says that he is agitated with Bac- chic fury through the love of Phoedrus; but she that ' love shakes her mind as the wind when it falls on moun- tain-oaks.* Socrates reproves Xantippe when she laments that he must die, and Sappho writes to her daughter, ' Grief is not lawful in the residence of the Muse, nor does it become us.'" Thus far Maximus Tyrius. But that a high intellect- ual standard prevailed in this academy of Sappho's may be inferred from a fragment of her verse, in which she utters her disappointment over an uncultivated woman, whom she had, perhaps, tried in vain to influence. This imaginary epitaph warns this pupil that she is in danger of being forgotten through forgetfulness of those Pierian roses which are the Muses' symbol. This version retains the brevity of the original lines, and though rhymed, is literal, except that it changes the second person to the third : — Dying she reposes ; Oblivion grasps her now; Since never Pierian roses Were wreathed round her empty brow; She goeth unwept and lonely To Hades* dusky homes, And bodiless shadows only Bid her welcome as she comes. To show how differently Sappho lamented her favor- ites, I give Elton's version of another epitaph on a 316 SAPPHO. xnaideDy whom we may fancy lying robed for the grave, while her companions sever their tresses around her, that something of themselves may be entombed with her. ** This dust was Tiraas* ; ere her bridal ho v She lies in Proserpina's gloomy bower; ^ Her virgin playmates from each lovely head Cut with sharp steel their locks, the strewments for the dead." These are only fragments ; but of the single complete poem that remains to us from Sappho, I shall venture on a translation, which can claim only to be tolerably literal, and to keep, in some degree, to the Sapphic metre. Yet I am cheered by the remark of an old grammarian, Demetrius Fhalereus, that " Sappho's whole poetry is so perfectly musical and harmonious, that even the harshest voice or most awkward recital can hardly render it un- pleasing to the ear." Let us hope that the Muses may extend some such grace, even to a translation. HYMN TO APHRODITE. Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite ! Daughter of Zeus, beguileir, I implore thee, Weigh me not down with weariness and anguish, thou most holy ! Come to me now \ if ever thou in kindness Hearkenedst my words, — and often hast thou hearkened, Heeding, and coming from the mansions golden Of thy great Father, Yoking thy chariot, borne by thy most lovely Consecrated birds, with dusky-tinted pinions, • Waving swift wings from utmost heights of heaven Through the mid-ether: « Swiftly they vanished ; leaving thee, goddess, Smiling, with face immortal in its beauty, Asking what I suffered, and why in utter longing 1 had dared call thee ; \ SAPPHO. 317 Asking what I sought, thus hopeless in desiring, Wildered in "brain, and spreading nets of passion Alas, for whom ? and saidst thou, '* Who has harmed thee? . my poor Sappho ! "Though now ^flies, erelong Ke shall pursue thee; Fearing thy gifts, he too in turn shall bring them ; Loveless to-day, to-morrow he shall woo thee, Though thou shouMst spurn him.'* Thus seek me now, holy Aphrodite I Save me from anguish, give me all I ask for. Gifts at thy hand; and thine shall be the glory, Sacred protector! It is safe to say that there is not a lyrical poem in Greek literature, nor in any other, which has, by its artistic structure, inspired more enthusiasm than this. Is it autobiographical? The German critics, true to their national instincts, hint that she may have written some of her verses in her character of pedagogue, as ex- ercises in different forms of verse. It is as if Shake- speare had written his sonnet, " Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" only to show young Southampton where the rhymes came in. Still more difficult is it to determine the same question — autobiographical or dramatic? — in case of the fragment next in length to this poem. It has been well ingrafted into English literature through the translation of Ambrose Philips, as follows : — • "TO A BELOVED WOMAN. " Blest as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee. And hears and sees thee, all the while, Softly speak and sweetly smile. ** *T was that deprived my soul of rest. And raised such tumult in my breast ; 318 SAPPHO. For whfle I gazed. In transport tost,' ' My breath was gone, my Toice was lost* " My tK>som glowed ; the subtile flame Ran quick through all my vital frame; 00 my dim eyes a darkness huns; My ears with hollow murmurs rung. " With dewy damps my limbs were chilled; My blood with gentle horrors thrilled;' My feeble pulse forgot to play ; 1 fainted, sunk, and died away.** The translation would give the impression that this is a complete poem ; but it is not A fragment of the next verse brings some revival from this desperate condition, but what exit is finally provided does not appear. The existing lines are preserved by Longinus in the eighth chapter of his famous book, ^ On the Sublime ** ; and his commentary is almost as impassioned as the poem. " Is it not wonderful how she calls at once on soul, body, ears, tongue, eyes, color, — as on so many separate deaths, — and how in self-contradiction and simultaneously she freezes, she glows, she raves, she returns to reason, she is terrified, she is at the brink of death ? It is not a single passion that she exhibits, but a whole congress of pas- sions." The poem thus described, while its grammatical formations show it to have been addressed by a woman to a woman, is quite as likely to have been dramatic as autobiographical in its motive. It became so famous, at any rate, as a diagnosis of passion, that a Greek physi- cian is said to have " copied it bodily into his book, and to have regulated his prescriptions accordingly." All that remains to us of Sappho, besides, is a chaos of short fragments, which have been assiduously collected and edited by Wolf, Blomfield, Neue, and others. Among the spirited translations by our own poet Percival, there V i SAPPHO. 319 are several of these fragments ; one of which I quote for its exceeding grace, though it consists of only two lines : — ^" Sweet mother, I can weave the web no more; So much I love the youth, so much I lingering love." But this last adjective, so effective to the ear, is, after all, an interpolation. It should be : — So much I love the youth, by Aphrodite*s charm. Percival also translates one striking fragment whose few short lines seem to toll like a bell, mourning the dreariness of a forgotten tryst, on which the moon and stars look down. I should render it thus: — The moon is down; And 1 've watched the dying / Of the Pleiades; *T is the middle night, The hour glides by, And alone I ^m sighing. Percival puts it in blank verse, more smoothly : — " The moon is set; the Pleiades are gone; *T is the midnoon of night; the hour is by, And yet I watch alone.*' There are some little fragments of verse addressed by Sappho to the evening star, which are supposed to have suggested the celebrated lines of Byron ; she says, — Hesperus, thou bringest all things, Thou bringest wine, thou bringest [home] the goat, To the mother thou bringest the child. Again she says, with a touch of higher imagination, — Hesperus, bringing home all that the light-giving morning has scattered. Grammarians have quoted this line to illustrate the deri- 320 SAPPHO. vation of the word Hesperus ;* and the passage may be meant to denote, not merely the assembling of the house- hold at night, but the more spiritual reuniting of the thoughts and dreams that draw round us with the shadows and vanish with 'the dawn. ' Acliilles Tatius, in the fifth century, gave in prose the Bubstance of one of Sappho's poems, not otherwise pre- served. It may be called •* The Song of the Rose." '^If Zeus had wished to appoint a sovereign over the fiowersy he would have made the rose their king. It is the ornament of the earth, the glory of plants, the eye of the flowers, the blush of the meadows, a flash of beauty. It breathes of love, welcomes Aphrodite, adorns itself with fragrant leaves, and is decked with tremulous petals, that laugh in the zephyr." Indeed, thut love of external nature, which is so often mistakenly said to have been wanting among the Greeks, is strongly marked in Sappho. She observes *' the vernal swallow and the melodious nightingale. Spring's herald." ^ The moon," she elsewhere says, " was at the full, and they [the stars] stood roun^her,as round an altar." And again, " The stars around the lovely moon withdraw their splendor when, in her fulness, she most illumines earth.'' Of herself Sappho speaks but httle in the fragments left to us. In one place she asserts that she is '' not of malignant nature, but has a placid mind," and again that her desire is for '^a mode of life that shall be elegant and at the same time honest," the first wish doing credit to her taste, and the other to her conscience. In several places she confesses to a love of luxury, yet she is described by a later Greek author, Aristides, as having rebuked certain vain and showy women for their ostentation, while point- * *£(r«-^pa i.vb tqv iffta voteuf vcpw t4 i^Cta, k. t. X. SAPPHO. 321 ing out that the pursuits of intellect afford a surer joy. It is hardly needful to add that not a line remains of her writings which can be charged with indecency ; and had any such existed, they would hardly have passed un- noticed or been forgotten. It is odd that the most direct report left to us of Sap- pho's familiar conversation should have enrolled her among those enemies of the human race who give out conundrums. Or rather it is in this ca8e a riddle of the old Greek fashion, such as the Sphinx set the example of propounding to men, before devouring them in any other manner. I will render it in plain prose. Sappho's Riddle. There is a feminine creature who bears in her bosom a voiceless brood ; yet they send forth a clear voice, over sea and land, to whatsoever mortals they will ; the absent hear it ; so do the deaf. This is the riddle, as recorded by Antiphanes, and pre- served by Athenseus. It appears that somebody tried to guess it. The feminine creature, he thought, was the state. The brood must be the orators, to be sure, whose voices reached beyond the seas, as far as Asia and Thrace, and brought back thence something to their own advantage ; while the community sat dumb and deaf amid their rail- ings. This seemed plausible, but somebody else objected to the solution ; for who ever knew, an orator to be silent^ he said, until he was put down by force ? All of which sounds quite American and modem. But he gave it up, at last, and appealed to Sappho, who thus replied :— Sappho's Solution. A letter is a thing essentially feminine in its character* 14* u 322 SAPPHO. It bears a brood in its bosom named the alphabet. They are voiceless, jet speak to whom they will ; and if any man shall stand next to him who reads, will he not hear ? It is not an exciting species of wit. Yet this kind of riddle was in immense demand in Greek society, and << if you make believe very hard, it 's quite nice." But it seems rather a pity that this memorial of Sappho should be pre- served, while her' solemn hymns and her £pithalamia, or marriage-songs, which were, as has been said, almost the first Greek effort toward dramatic poety, are lost to us forever. And thus we might go on through the literature of Greece, peering after little grains of Sappho among the rubbish of voluminous authors. But perhaps these speci- mens are enough'. It remains to say that the name of Phaon, who is represented by Ovid as having been her lover, is not once mentioned in these fragments, and the general tendency of modern criticism is to deny his exist- ence. Some suppose him to have been a merely mythical .being, based upon the supposed loves of Aphrodite and Adonis, who was called by the Greeks Phaethon or Phaon. It was said that this Phaon was a ferryman at Mitylene, who was growing old and ugly till he rowed Aphrodite in his boat, and then refused payment; on which she gave him for recompense youth, beauty, and Sappho. This was certainly, " Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee;' as in Uhland's ballad ; but the Greek passengers have long since grown as shadowy as the German, and we shall never know whether this oarsman really ferried him- self into the favor of goddess or of dame. It is of little consequence ; Sappho "aoubtless had lovers, and one of them may as well have been named Phaon as anything else. SAPPHO. 323 • But to lose her fabled leap from the Leucadian prom- ontory would doubtless be a greater sacrifice ; it formed 80 much more effective a termination for her life than any novelist could have contrived. It is certain that the leap itself, as a Greek practice, was no fable ; sometimes it was a form of suicide, sometimes a religious incantation, and sometimes again an expiation of crime. But it was also used often as a figure of speech by comfortable poets who would have been sorry to find in it anything more. Anac- reon, for instance, says in an ode, " Again casting myself from the Leucadian rock, I plunge into the gray sea, drunk with love " ; though it is clear that he was not a man to drown his cares in anything larger than a punch-bowl. It is certainly hard to suppose that the most lovelorn lady, residing on an island whose every shore was a precipice^ and where her lover was at hand to feel the anguish of her fete, would take ship and sail for we'ary days over ^vq hundred miles of water to seek a more sensational rock. Theqdor Kock, ^he latest German writer on Sappho, thinks it is as if a lover should travel from the Rhine to Niagara to drown himself., " Are not Abana and Phar- par rivers of Damascus?" More solid, negative proof is found in the fact- that. Ptolemy HephaBstion, the author who has collected the most numerous notices of the Leu- cadian leap, entirely omits the conspicuous name of Sap- pho from his record. Even Colonel Mure, who is as anxious to prove this deed against her a3 if it were a violation of all the ten commandments, is staggered for a moment by this omission ; but soon recovering himself, with an ingenuity that does him credit as attorney for the prosecution, he points out that the reason Ptolemy omit- ted Sappho's name was undoubtedly because it was so well known ^eady ; a use of negative evidence to which 324 SAPPHO. there can be no objection^ except that under it any one of U8 might be convicted of having died last year, on the plea that his death was a fact too notorious to be mentioned in the newspapers. But whether by the way of the Lencadian cliff or other- wise, Sappho is gone, with her music and her pupils and most of the words she wrote, and the very city where she dwelt, and all but the island she loved. It is something to be able to record tnat, twenty-five centuries ago, in that remote nook among the Grecian Isles, a woman's genius could play such a part in moulding the great literature that has moulded the world. Colonel Mure thinks that a hundred such women might have demoralized all Greece. But it grew demoralized at any rate ; and even the island where Sappho taught took its share in the degradation* If, on the other hand, the view taken of her by more * careful criticism be correct, a hundred such women might / have done much to save it. Modem nations must take up again the problem where Athens failec^ and Lesbos only pointed the way to the solution, — to create a civilization where the highest culture sl^iall be extended to woman also. It is not enough that we should dream, with Plato, of a republic where man is free and woman but a serf. The aspirations of modern life culminate, like the greatest of modem poems, in the elevation of womanhood. Die] ewige WeMiche zieht uns hinan. ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. I REMEMBER the very day when the schoolmaster gave it to me. He was that vigorous, rigorous, kind- hearted, thoroughrbred Englishman, W. W. It was the beginning of a new school-year. Lowell and Story and the other old boys, who seemed so immeasurably ancient, had been transferred to college ; and last year's youngest class was at length youngest but one, and ready" for the " New Latin Tutor."- Then W. W. called us to his desk, and, opening it, — I can hear the very rattle of the "birch" as it rolled back from the uplifted lid,: — he brought out fpr us these books, in all the glory of fresh calf binding, and gave each volume into trembling, boyish hands. To some of us there was always more of birch than of bounty in the immediate associations of that desk, and I fancy that we always trembled a little when we had a new book, as if all the potential floggings which it might involve were already tingling between its covers. Yet those of us whose love of the book was wont to save us from the rod may have felt the thrill of delight pre- dominate ; at any rate, there was novelty and " the joy of eventful living " ; and I remember that the rather stem and aquiline face of our teacher relaxed into mildness for a moment. Both we and our books must have looked very 328 ON A^ OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. fresh and new to him, though we may all be a little bat- tered now ; at least, my " New Latin Tator " is. The change undergone by the volume which Browning put in the plum-tree clefl, to be read only by newts and beetles, — " With all the binding fdl of a blister, And great blue spots where the ink has ran, And reddish streaks that wink and glister," — could hardly exceed what this book shows, when I fish it up from a chest of literary lumber, coeval with itself. It would smell musty, doubtless, to any nose unregulated by a heart ; but to me it is redolent of the alder-blossoms of boyish springs, and the aromatic walnut-odor which used in autumn to pervade the dells of " Sweet Auburn," that lay not so very far from our school-house. It is a very precious book, and it should be robed in choice Turkey morocco, were not the very covers too much a part of the association to be changed. For between them I gathered the seed-grain of many harvests of de- light; < through this low archway I first looked upon the immeasurable beauty of words. ^ Do ye hear, or does an amiable madness seize me ? I seem to hear her, and to wander through holy groves, where the pleasant waters and the breezes play." Are these phrases really so delightful, or was it the process of re-translation into Latin that so fixed them in my ear ? It seems to me that they first taught me what language was meant for ; they set to music the wandering breeze and the running brook ; they doubled the joy that these things gave. There was no new itiformation offered by the sentence ; I had long known that the waters were pleasant^ and had an instinct that the groves were holy; but that it was within the power of words to reproduce and almost double by 'utterance these sweet felicities, this had \ ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-^BOOK. 329 never dawned upon me till these ^ exercises in writing Latin " began. This, then, was literature ! "But he, yet a boy and as unobserved, goes here and there upon the lonely green ; and dips the soles of his feet, then up to the ankle, in the playing waters." How delicious it seemed in the English, how much more in the Latin! What liquid words were these: aqua, aura, unda ! All English poetry that I had yet learned by heart — it is only children who learn by heart, grown people " commit to memory " — had not so awak- ened the vision of what literature might mean. Thence- forth all life became ideal. The child who read this was himself that boy " upon the lonely green " ; he it was who, being twelve years old, could just touch the tender boughs from the ground : — " Alter ab uiidecimo turn me jam ceperat annris, ' , Jam fragiles poteram a terra contingere ramos." Then human passion, tender, faithful, immortal, came also by and beckoned. " ' J3ut let me die,' she said. * Tims, thus it delights me to go under the sltades.' " Or that infinite tenderness, the stronger even for its opening moderation of utterance, the last sigh of ^neas after Dido, — " Nee me meminisse pigcbit Elissam Dum memor ipse mlhl, dum spiritus hos regit artus." Then "visionary forma" gather round the boy's head, " fluttering about iq wondrous ways ; he hears various sounds and enjoys an interview with the gods " : — " Miilta modis simulacra Videt volitantia miris Et varias audit voces, fruiturque Deorum ■ Colloquio." Or, with more definite and sublime grandeur, the vast forms of Boman statesmanship appear: "To-day, Ro- i 330 ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. mans, 70a behold the commonwealth, the lives of you all, estates, fortunes, wives, and children, and the seat of this most renowned empire, this most fortunate and most beautiful city, preserved and restored to you by the distinguished love of the immortal gods, and by my toils, counsels, and dangers." What great thoughts were found within these pages, what a Boman vigor was in these maxims I " It is Roman to do and to suffer bravely." " It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country." " He that gives himself up to pleasure is not worthy the name of a m*an." '^ It is the part of a brave and unshaken spirit not to be disturbed in adverse affairs." " At how much is virtue to be esti- mated, which can never be taken away by force, nor pur- loined ; is neither lost by shipwreck, nor by fire, nor is it changed by the alterations of seasons and of times." Then came the tender charities. " Compassionate such grievous J afflictions, compassionate a soul bearing unmerited treat- ment." There was nothing hardior stern in this book, no cynicism, no indifference ; but it was a flower-garden of lovely out-door allusions, a gallery of great deeds ; and, as I have said, it formed the child's first real glimpse into the kingdom of words. Could not the same literary fascination, the same spell, prophetic of future joys, have been exerted by English poetry ? Perhaps so, though just the same quality of charm had never, in my case, been found there. But what fixed it forever in the mind was the minute and de- tailed study required in the process of translation, — the balancing of epithets, the seeking of equivalents. Genius doubtless is a law to itself, but for ordinary minds' the deli- cate shading of language must be discerned by-careful com- parison of words, just as taste in dress comes to women by ^ ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. 331 the careful matching of soft tints. It takes two languages to teach us the resources of one. Montaigne, who taught his son to speak Latin only, left him as uneducated as if he had learned his mother-tongue alone. I was once asked by a doctor of divinity, who was also the overseer of a college, whether I ever knew any one to look back with pleasure upon his early studies in Latin and Greek. It was like being asked if one looked back with pleasure on summer mornings and evenings. .No doubt those languages, like all others, have fared hard at the hands of pedants ; and there are active boys who hate all study, and others who love the natural sciences alone. But I remember with unspe/ikable gratitude that I never tasted of any study whatever without hearty en- joyment ; nor is it easy to see how any one can ever feel ennui in life while there is a language or a science left to learn. Indeed, it is a hasty assumption, that the ma- jority of boys hate Latin and Greek. I find that most college graduates, at least, retain some relish for the mem- ory of such studies, even if they have utterly lost the power to masticate or digest them. " Though they speak no Greek, they love the sound on 't." Many a respectable citizen still loves to look at his Horace or Yirgil on the shelf where it has stood undisturbed for a dozen years ; he looks, and thinks that he too lived in Arcadia. He recalls his college dreams, and walks, and talks, and the debating society, and the class day. He murmurs something to himself about the ''still air of delightful studies." The books link him with culture, and universi- ties, and the traditions of great scholars. On some stormy Sunda}', he thinks, he will take them down. At length he tries it ; he handles the volume awkwardly, as he does his infant ; but it is something to be able to say that 332 ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. neither book nor babjr bas been actually dropped. He likes to knot^ that there is a tie between him and each of these possessions, though he is willing, it must be owned, to leave the daily care of each in more familiar hands. But even if he only hated the sight of his old text- books, what would it prove ? Not that he was unfit for their study, or the study for him, but that either book or teacher was inadequate. It is not the child's fault if all this region of delight be haunted by ogres called grammarians. Where "Andrews and Stoddard** enter, it is inevitable that all joys should flee ; but why, we are now beginning to ask, should those extremely prosaic gentlemen come in at all ? Accuracy is desirable, and doubtless a child should learn grammar, but the terrible book which this academical firm prepared was not a grammar ; it was an encyclopaedia of philology in srtall print. It is something to the praise of classical studies that even those two well-meaning men did not extinguish these pursuits forever. It is not to be imputed to boys as a crime, " that they do not love the conjugations at first sight, or conceive a passionate attachment for the irregu- lar verbs." In the days when this old book was new, a little manual of a hundred pages, prepared by W. W. himself, contained all that was held needful to be learned of grammar ; and in these happy modem days of Allen and of Goodwin, that golden age returns. Any child can bear a little drudgery, and it will do him good ; it is the amount that kills. A boy will joyfully wade through a half-mile of sandhills to reach the sea ; but do not there- fore try him with the desert of Sahara. When I was at school, the path did not lead throu^^h the desert ; but had it done so, this old text-book would have been an oasis. Tet it may plausibly be said that what charms the child, ^ ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. 333 after all, is the grace of the phrase, an^ that even if a col- lection of good English sentences would not answer as well (because he is not forced to dwell on them for the purpose of translation), yet some German or French phrase-book, provided it were not Ollendorff, might serve the purpose. I should be the last person to deny the magic that may also dwell, for young people, in a book like Miss Austen's " Selections from German Prose Writers," which at a later period I almost learned by heart. But however we may define the words " classic '' and " romantic," it will be found, I think, however con- trary to the impression of many, that the child is nat- urally a classicist first. Emerson said well, ** Every healthy boy is a Greek " ; while his powers are dawning and he divides his life between games and book^, he pre- fers phrases that, while they touch his imagination, have yet a certain definite qiiality> A- Greek statue, a Latin line, reach him and stay with him ; he likes them as he likes Scott, for the vivid picAire. He must grow a little older, must look before and after ; the vague sense of a dawning destiny must begin just to touch him ; he must gaze into a maiden's eyes, and begin to write long reveries in his journal, and fancy himself " so young, yet so old," before Germany can fully reach him. To the Qerman was given " the powers of the air," but the boy dwells on earth ; for him the very gods must be, like those of the Greeks and Romans, men and women. He is poetic, but it is according to Milton's definition, " simple, sensuous, passionate"; the boy's poetry is classic, it is the youth only who is romantic. Give him time enough, and every castle on the Rhine will have for him a dream, and every lily of the Mummelsee an imprisoned maiden ; but his earlier faith is in the more definite dramatis personce of 334 ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. this old text-book. Wordsworth, in one of his profonndest poemSy " Tintem Abbey," has described tlie difference bet^feen the "glad animal movements" of a boy's most ardent love of nature, and the more meditative enjoyment of later years ; and the child approaches literature as he does nature, with direct and vehement delight ; the wlld- e.st romances must have in some sort definite outlines, as in the Arabian Nights. The epoch of vague dreams will come later ; up to the age of thirteen he is a Roman or a Greek. I must honestly say that much of the modern outcry against classical studies seems to me to be (as in the case of good Dr. Jacob Bigelow) a frank hostility to literature Itself, as the supposed rival of science ; or a willingness (as in Professor Atkinson's case) to tolerate modem lite- rature, while discouraging the study of the ancient. Both seem to commit the error, of drawing their examples of abuse from England, and applying their warnings to Amer- ica. Because your neighbor on one side is dying of a ple- thora, there is no reason why you should withhold bread from your neighbor on the other side, who is dying of star- vation. Because nine tenths of the English school-boys are " addled," according to Mr. Farrar, by being overworked in Latin verse-making, must we transfer the same impu- tation to colleges which never burdened the conscience of a pupil with a single metrical line ? Because the House of Commons was once said to care more for a false quan- tity in Latin verse than in English morals, shall we visit equal indignation on a House of Representatives that had to send for a classical dictionary to find out who Thersites was ? Since all the leading modern lanaruaa:es and the chief branches of natural science have been sedulously taught in our American colleges for a quarter of a cen- ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK. 335 tury, why keep discoursing on the omissions of Oxford and Cambridge ? Have we then no sins of our own, that we must torture ourselves in vicarious penance for the whole of Europe ? Granted, that foreign systems of education may err by insisting on the arts of literary structure too much ; think what we should lose by dwelling on them too little 1 The magic of mere words ; the mission of language ; the worth of form as well as of matter ; the power to make a com- mon thought immortal in a phrase, so that your fancy can no more detach the one from the other than it can separate the soul and body of a child ; — it was the veiled half-revelation of these things that made that old text- book forever fragrant to me. There are in it the still visible traces of wild flowers which I used to press between the pages, on the way to school ; but it was the pressed flowers of Latin poetry thfit were embalmed there first. These are blossoms that do not fade. Horace was rinrht ill his fond imagination, and his "monument has proved more permanent than any bronze, €Bre perennius, "Wonderful is it to me," says Boccaccio, in Lander's delicious Pentameron, " when I consider that an infirm and helpless creature;, such as I am, should be capable of laying thoughts up in their cabinet of words, which Time, as he moves by, with the revolutions of stormy and event-, ful years, can never move from their places." One must bear in mind the tendencies of the time. If the danger were impending of an age of mere literary con-? ceits, every one should doubtless contend against it ; for what is the use of polished weapons, where there is no am-r munition ? But the current tendency is all the other way, — to distrust all literary graces, to denude English style of all positive beauty, and leave it only the colorless vehicle 836 ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK, of thought There must not even be the smoothness of Queen Anne's day, still less the delicacy of the current French traditions ; but only a good, clear, manly, ener- getic, insular style, as if each dwelt on an island, and hailed his neighbor each morning in good chest tones, to tell him the news. It is the farthest possible from the style of a poet or an artist, but it is the style of that ideal man for whom Huxley longs, " whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to all kinds of work." In Huxley himself this type of writhig is seen at the greatest advantage; Froude and Seeley have much the same ; and books ' like the " Essays on a Liberal Education," put together by a dozen different Oxford and Cambridge men, exhibit but one style, — a style that goes straight to the mark and will stand no nonsense. It is all very well, so far, and this is doubtless better than carving the bow till it breaks, as in -^sop's' fable ; but is there not room in the world for both science and art, use and beauty ? If a page is good that tells truth plainly, may not another page have merit that sets truth in words which linger like music on the ear ? We are outgrowing the foOlish fear that science is taking all poetry away from the facts of nature ; but why should it set itself against the poetry of words ? The savans themselves recognize the love of beauty as quite a respectable instinct, when it appears paleontologically. When, in the exploration of bone- caves, they find that some primeval personage carved a bird or a beaver upon his hatchet, they are all in ecstasies and say, " This is indeed a discovery. About the year of the world thirty-three thousand, art was born ! " But if art took so long a gestation, is it not ON AN OLD LATIN TEXT-BOOK.^ 337 worth keeping alive, now that we have got it ? Why is it that, when all these added centuries have passed, the writer must now take the style, which is his weapon, must erase from it all attempt at beauty, and demand only that, like the barbaric hatchet, it shall bring down its man? In America, this tendency is only dawning ; while Em- erson lives, it will be still believed that literature means form as well as matter. But no one can talk with the pupils of our new technological schools, without seeing that, in surrendering books like my old Latin text-book, it is in fact literature that they renounce. They speak as impatiently of the hours wasted on Paradise Lost as if they were given to Plato. Even at our oldest Univer- sity, the department of " Rhetoric and Oratory " came so • near to extinction that it only got a reprieve on the very scaffold, at the intercession of some of the older grad- \ uates. " To pursue literature per se " has become almost a badge of reproach in quarters where what is sometimes called " the new education " prevails. Now there is no danger, in th^se exciting Darwinian days, that any one will disregard the study of natural science ; but when one sees how desperately it sometimes narrows its votaries, one admires the wit of the Cambridge lady who said the other day, when taxed with one-sidedness by the scien- tists, that she must, after all, prefer literature per se to science purblind. It is my most cherished conviction that this Anglo- American race is developing a finer organization th^n the stock from which it sprang, — is destined to be more sensi- tive to art, as' well as more abundant in nervous energy. We must not narrow ourselves .into science only, must not btcome mere observers nor mere thinkers, but must 15 . v 338 ' ON AN OLD LA TIN TEXT-BOOK. hold to the side of art as well. Grant that it is the worthj mission of the current British literature to render style clear, simple, and convincing, it may yet be the mi.